S4 
they are even now sometimes described as having semina nuda, 
and the plants are called gymnospermous. 
In the Valerianez the common seminal stem is still more 
evident, presenting two nodi, the one below consisting in the 
point of attachment of the calyx as well as of the carpellary 
leaves, the other above, from whence proceed the partial 
seminal pedicels.* In many species which I have happened 
to examine belonging to the genera Valeriana L. Fedia, 
Meench, Valerianella Meench, and Patrinia Juss. immediately 
under the outer integument of the fruit, formed as is known 
by the calyx which covers it—along the exterior, somewhat 
concave, surface of the cell that encloses the seed, it is easy to 
observe a more or less thin threadlike organ, on which the 
two abovementioned nodi are evident, and not unfrequently 
there proceeds from the upper one a new internodium 
forming the style, as I have seen it even in the perfectly 
ripe fruit of Valerianella hamata Bast. I have said even 
in the perfectly ripe fruit, for we must know that by the 
general laws of vegetable life, all vegetative organs ap- 
proaching to maturity, with the gradual breaking off of 
their organic activity, lose also gradually their fulness, 
turgor’ vitalis, and at length dry up and disappear, and on 
that account this extracarpellary general seminal stem in 
the Valerianee may have been easily overlooked by botanical 
describers, not guided by speculations such as ours. I may 
here remark en passant, that besides the evident presence of 
three cells easily separable one from another without rupture 
of the tissue in Nardostachys, Dufresnea, and Patrinia, I 
have also observed sometimes in Patrinia sibirica that the 
seed is not solitary, i.e. that one or two ordinary seedless 
cells have contained a seed, though, it is true, less perfect and 
smaller than the ordinary seed. This, amongst other things, 
refutes the objections of Bunge relative to the structure of 
the fruit in Valerianee, made in the Ist vol. of the Flora 
Altaica. 
The constant presence of perfect seeds—differing only in 
form from each other—in both cells of the ripe fruit of the 
* In the genus Nardostachys, DC. the attachment of the cocci, or cells, 
appears to be similar to that of Asperugo, at least as far as can be judged 
from DeCandolle’s figure (Mem. sur la famille des Valerianées, pl.1. 2.); the 
seedless cells do not reach to the base of the fruit or nodus of the attach- 
ment of the calyx. 
