MR. G. BENTHAM ON AUSTRALIAN PROTEACEZ. 61 
towards the end, the limb becomes reversed, and, opening from its 
upturned base, the eurved style, whieh had already protruded 
laterally from the tube, becomes liberated at the end and springs 
upwards, shaking off the pollen it had collected whilst still en- 
closed with the anthers; for so much of the end of the style as 
reaches the anther-cylinder is generally more or less thickened 
and glutinous or papillose, with the small stigma at the tip en- 
tirely exposed in the bud to the collected pollen, but evidently 
then incapable of absorbing it. Could fertilization then take 
place, we should not see in so many Banksias the great majority 
of the ovaries remaining unfertilized to thelast; for in the mature 
bud we always find the anthers open and the pollen discharged 
on the stigmatic end of the style. 
In the majority of the curved-flowered Grevillee and Hakee 
the collecting end of the style is a broad thick disk with the small 
stigma in its centre. This broad disk may assist in spreading out 
the upturned base of the perianth-limb, which often remains closed 
at the tips, so that, when the style starts up from it, it leaves the 
anthers with their loose pollen in a sort of cup ; and here possibly 
the agency of insects may be required to transfer the pollen to 
adjoining flowers. In Grevillea buxifolia (Plate I. fig. 5) and 
a few others there is a remarkable appendage to the back of the 
stigmatie disk, which is closely turned back on the style in the 
bud, but diverges, or even straightens, so as to form a continua- 
tion of the style beyond the lateral disk, when it has become 
liberated. The force by which this appendage is straightened 
assists probably in bursting open the perianth-limb. In some of 
the straight-flowered Grevillee, as in G. vestita for instance 
(Plate I. fig. 7), we have a style reminding us at first sight of 
that of some Petrophile or Persoonie (a broad conical summit 
with a small stigma at the point, below it a thick columnar fur- 
rowed style resting upon an obconical smooth base), but in reality 
totally different. The terminal cone or disk and stigma, instead 
of being above the anther-cylinder and out of reach of the pollen, 
is enclosed within it ; the furrowed style is not within the cylinder 
serving as pollen-collector, but below it without any apparent 
use; and the obconical base is not the enlarged end of the style, * 
but the ovary at its base. Here, therefore, fecundation must 
have taken place in the bud were it not for the immaturity of 
both sexes. The globular limb opens very readily, apparently 
without elasticity ; and at the time of its expansion I find, as far 
