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older flowers this is much more, and when the plant is in fruit, 
the separation is still greater. 
At g is seen a form of the involucre of perfect flowers that is 
sometimes found. At first sight there are four bracts, but a fur- 
ther inspection shows that two of them are united at the basal 
end and side. However, the smallest of the three or four, as the 
case may be, is situated above the others, and bears a strong 
resemblance in form and texture to the sepals. If this one be an 
extra bract, it is natural to consider the deeply lobed bract as 
made up of two. Sometimes the four bracts are all of the same 
size, and are disposed in the form of across, as seen at 4. The 
most interesting involucre, morphologically considered, is perhaps 
the one shown at z. In this there are four bracts, three of which 
are of nearly the same size, and the fourth smaller but green and 
hairy. This one occupies a place just above the larger and — 
lower three. In the circle of sepals was one, a little larger 
than the others, one-half of which was green while the balance 
of the organ was white and petal-like. The green portion of the 
sepal is shown shaded in the engraving. This organ is fully a 
third of an inch above the abnomal involucre. 
The tendency toward a cleft condition. of the bracts of the 
involucre is not extraordinary when we know that this Hepatica 
is now placed in the same genus with several species where the 
involucre, although quite remote from the flower, is made up of 
foliar organs which are often much incised. Anemone nemorosa 
L., and A. dichotoma, L., may be mentioned as close confreres in 
the genus, while on the other side is the old 7halictrum anemon- 
oides, Michx., which Spach placed in a new genus, namely, — 
Anemonella. The tip of our abnormal bract is more like that of 
a leaflet of the Anzemonella, or of a leaflet of Thalictrum dioicum, 
L. The dicecious tendency also points in the same direction. 
Each reader is left to draw his own conclusions as to what the 
outcome in the future centuries may be; whether we shall then 
have a truly dicecious species in Anemone acutiloba or one divested 
of all traces of a separation of the sexes. 
Byron D. HALSTED. 
Ames, Iowa, April 22, 1887. 
