OF STAMINAL PISTIIvLOBY IN AN AC ANT It A U. 89 



the facts of teratology can be held to have any weight in connexion 

 with the history of descent, such, in this case, is almost nil ; for 

 one shudders to think of the immense period which must have 

 elapsed since the Personate Adam possessed a three-celled ovary. 

 Of course there remains the third alternative, that it is a structural 

 " leap in the dark " — a freak of development induced by cultivation. 



I have looked up all the bibliography bearing on this subject 

 with which I am acquainted, and have met with two cases only in 

 which a normally epipetalous stamen became ovuliferous and h) r - 

 pogynous : Brongniart* has described a Jacob's Ladder in which 

 the corolla is partially aborted, being represented by five small 

 greenish folioles free from each other, while the transformed sta- 

 mens, inserted beneath the ovary, bear ovules enclosed in an im- 

 pervious cavity; and Masters t speaks of having seen a drawing 

 by the Rev. G. Smith of a specimen of Primula acaulis, in which 

 the stamens were hypogynous and bore ovules in open cavities. 

 Wigand J has figured and described a case of Qentiana amarella in 

 which there were two ovarially-inserted stamens ; but these bore 

 pollen in the ordinary way. 



Two roads of investigation remain to be opened out in connex- 

 ion with this Whitfieldia : — one, an attempt at fertilization of the 

 exposed ovules ; the other, to determine whether there exists a 

 causal relation between the amounts of polliniferous and ovulife- 

 rous production respectively — in other words, whether each trans- 

 formed organ is strictly limited as to the extent of its exhibition 

 of the sexual elements, or whether cultivation has so profoundly 

 modified it that such is not the case. Should the opportunity occur 



at a future time, I propose to myself the pleasure of experimenting 

 in this direction. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATES III. & IV. 



Figs. 1-6. Structure of normal flower of Whitfieldia laterifia: fig. 1, natural 



size; the rest (as all the other figures) more or less magnified. 

 1. Flower and appendages. 2. The same laid open (the asterisk - 

 marked lobes are those of the upper lip). 3. An anther. 4. 

 Ovary in longitudinal section. 5. The same unopened : o, ovary ; 

 d y disk ; r, receptacle. f>. Campylotropous ovule on its reti- 

 naculum. 



* Bull. Soc. Bot. t. viii. p. 453. t Veget. Terat. p. 808 



% Flora, 1856, t. viii. fig. 6 p. 715. 



LINN. JOURN.— BOTANY, TOL. XT. I 



