NOTES ON PLANTS. 47 
perfect styles; and it seems possible that the processes on 
the appendages of the stamens in certain Cyperaces, e. g. Acro- 
carpus, and especially in a plant nearly allied to Galmia, collected 
in tropical Africa by Dr. Welwitsch, and hitherto, as far as I can 
determine, undescribed, may be rudimentary stigmatic hairs. 
Lolium perenne is probably more subject to malformation than 
any other grass ; this is no doubt due to its habit of growing in 
waste ground and by-paths, where it is especially liable to injury ; 
and in this case, from the fact that all the plants affected were 
growing close together in a patch, while the others in the field 
were unaffected, it is probable that the malformation was due to 
some accident to the grass at that spot. 
3. Note on Equisetum maximum, var. serotinum (var. prolife- 
rum, Milde).—A specimen of Equisetum maximum, answering to 
the description of this plant in Milde’s monograph of the order, 
occurred among a considerable quantity of the normal form in 
Durleston Bay, near Swanage in Dorsetshire. It consists of 
a vegetative stem which, at some height above the ground, 
has produced a spike of fructification ; this again passes into, and 
is terminated by, another vegetative portion. The whorl of 
leaves immediately below the annulus has taken the form of the 
long leaves characteristic of the fertile stem ; all the ones below, 
however, are similar to those of a normal sterile stem. A longi- 
tudinal section of the fruiting portion shows the nodal septa at 
the base and upper part; they disappear, however, in the centre. 
The most interesting feature, however, is in the upper part of 
the spike, where the sporangiophores pass into the normal 
leaves. In the most slightly modified of these the clypeole 
produces from the centre an acuminate process, which is in most 
cases deflected, and is dark brown or black at the apex; in the 
more modified ones the clypeole has lost its hexagonal shape, and 
becomes the broad base of the leaf, the leaf-point is longer and 
passes insensibly into the elypeole. the pedicel is broader and 
flatter, the sporangia fewer. Finally, the clypeole and pedicel 
are quite undistinguishable from the rest of the leaf. It is note- 
worthy that in many cases the primarily single acuminate pro- 
cess becomes cleft, in one ease almost as far as the sporanges. 
The apieal portion of the stem is similar to that of a normal 
sterile plant, except at the base, where there is a partial whorl of 
the large leaves characteristic of the fertile stem, at the base of 
which are one or two sporanges placed exteriorly to the leaf. 
