148 MR. A. W. BENNETT ON THE FLORAL 
should be unknown to those who have seen the plant only in the 
herbarium is not surprising, from a circumstance presently to be 
mentioned. The locality of the observations is one of its well- 
known habitats, the banks of the small but rapid stream the 
Tillingbourne, an affluent of the Wey, near the village of Shalford, 
in Surrey. Here it fringes the banks in great quantities every 
year, having apparently spread upwards from the Wey, a dis- 
tance of from half a mile to a mile, notwithstanding the rapidity 
of the current, its seeds being doubtless carried by birds or 
other water-animals; for it appears to be strictly annual. My 
attention was first attracted to the subject by the great abun- 
dance of seed-vessels, notwithstanding the difficulty I had had 
in finding any of the flowers earlier in the summer, and the 
remark of a local naturalist that * it is one of those plants which 
bears seeds without producing any flowers." 
Prof. Gray's description might be understood to imply that, in 
the earlier stages, the two kinds of flower-bud are identical, the 
difference in structure developing only after the premature ferti- 
lization of those which are not destined to produce conspicuous 
flowers. I believe, however, that the difference is original; at 
least, in the very earliest stage at which the buds are visible to 
the eye I could detect the external difference without difficulty. 
Figs. 1 & 2 represent the appearance of the flower-bud in both 
kinds of flowers at a very early stage, before the organs of repro- 
duction are fully developed. The bud of the conspicuous flower 
(fig. 1) has the apex of the two exterior (lateral) sepals hooked, 
while in that of the inconspicuous flower (fig. 2) it is straight, 
the two buds at this stage being nearly equal in size. The 
removal of the two exterior sepals shows a still greater differ- 
ence (figs. 3, 4), the spurred posterior sepal, or nectary, being 
very easily seen in the former case (fig. 3), while in the latter 
(fig. 4) the interior whorls of organs are, as described by Prof. 
Gray, nearly regular, but never developing beyond a very mi- 
nute size. . 
The arrangement of the stamens in the conspicuous flowers, I 
find to differ slightly from Prof. Gray’s generally very accurate 
deseription. The filaments, as shown in fig. 5, are coherent in 
their lower part, but free above, the anthers being again coherent. 
A single stamen, showing the mode of dehiscence and escape of 
the pollen, is shown in fig. 6. The pollen is disharged in dense 
white masses. The anterior stamen is decidedly longer than the 
