182 Rhodora [JULY 
not noticed it before and can not account for it. He can not tell why 
there is but one, or in fact why it should be there at all. I presume 
that he will look it up and thanks to you, it will appear in the next 
Botany. 
Yours ever, 
ALICE A. СЕАҮ. 
Botanic Garden, | 
June 28th 1867." 
On making inquiry at the Botanie Garden, Cambridge, a few days 
ago, I could not find that Dr. Gray had made any record of the study 
of the point called to his attention. The Weigela is a foreign shrub 
and therefore has not been included in the Flora of this country. 
The gland is small, oblong, and green in a fresh blossom. It lies 
within and at the base of the monopetalous corolla. It is close to the 
base of the style, but forms no part of it. It seems to secrete a honey- 
like substance. "Тһе style is very lightly attached to the ovary (which 
lies below the calyx) and is easily separated from it in the attempt 
to open the blossom. This makes it easy to mistake the gland for the 
ovary. 
Has this been noticed in any magazine or paper, or has any one 
attempted to explain its use? After forty-one years of waiting, I should 
be glad to learn something more about it. 
WESTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 
[In a search, necessarily hurried, we find the following references to the 
structure in question: 1) Eichler, Bliithendiagramme, i. 267, where it is 
mentioned as an anteriorly placed glandular outgrowth of the disk, its posi- 
tion being shown in figure 142 E on page 265. 2) Knuth, Handbook of 
Flower Pollination (J. R. Ainsworth’s translation), ii. 525, where under Weigela 
it is stated that the nectar is “secreted by a green swelling between the base 
of the style and the corolla.” The structure has been examined in fresh 
material and we are inclined to agree with the authors cited, in believing it to 
be an elevated outgrowth of the disk, modified to secrete nectar and attract 
insects, which effect cross-pollination.— Ed.] 
Vol. 10, No. 114, including pages 97-116, was issued 15 July, 1908. 
