MR. A. W. BEXXETT OX PAIIKASSTA PALITSTRTS. 29 



petaloid appearance. The exterior row are described by St.-IIi- 

 laire as varying jn form in the different species, but always thread- 

 shaped at the base, and thickened upwards to the shape of a club, 

 a nail, or a spade j the inner row consists of 5 distinct petaloid 

 scales, surrounding the generative organs, but not united, as iu 

 Lavradia^ into a tube. Taking these two rows of organs unitedly 

 as constituting the nectary, it would be difficult to consider both 

 the inner and outer row metamorphosed stamens, the inner 

 row appearing never to present an approach to a staminoid form, 

 and the outer row being frequently partially or entirely aborted ; 

 and this would seem to confirm the view that the scales of Par^ 

 nassia should be regarded in the light rather of petals than of 

 stamens. I can find no record of any observation of pheno- 

 mena connected with the stamens of Sauvagesia similar to those I 

 liave described in Parnassia^ or identifying, as I should expect 

 would be the case, the functions of the extrorse anthers and 



» 



nectary of Saiivagesia^iih. those of our English genus. In all the 

 species of Lavradia, however, the inner corolla is described as 

 purple or rose-coloured, as if for the purpose of attracting insects, 



while the exterior corolla is generally white- 



The most conspicuous structural differences between Parnassia 

 and Sauvagesia are the 3-5 stigmata and exstipulate leaves of the 

 former, contrasted with the single style and stigma and the re- 

 markable laciniated or fimbriated stipules of the latter genus, 

 together with the difference in their general habit. It will be 

 interesting, therefore, to trace what aberrant forms exist con- 

 necting the two. In Hooker and Thomson's ' Praecursores ad 

 floram Indicam ' (Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. ii. p. 55), I 

 find that Himalayan Parnassia are described as " styles 3 or 1," 

 while in P. tenella, on which species they remark (p. 79) that, 

 *' though it is decidedly the most abnormal species of the genus 

 yet discovered, it is somewhat singular that it does not throw any 

 light on the affinities of the genus," we have the " fimbriated 

 stipules" so characteristic of Sauvagesia and Lavradia^ and the 

 curious scutiform staminodia irresistibly remind one of those of 

 several species of Sauvagesia, In Sauvagesia tenella, on the other 

 hand, the smallest species of the genus, the slender habit and 

 distant alternate sessile spathulate leaves, together with the 

 partial or entire abortion of the outer row of staminodia^ show a 

 marked approach to some of the species of Parnassia v,ith folioso 

 scapes, while the stipules, described by St.-IIihaire as very small, 



