eR a RE Ae te Bs SEP ae nS, 
LEITNERIA FLORIDANA. 69 
the trees, whereas the staminate catkins are very evident 
from a considerable distance. Unlike the staminate flow- 
ers, the pistillate, which are limited to the upper axils, are 
very short-stalked or with a rudimentary disk, and possess 
a rudimentary involucre or perianth of a few small, glandu- 
lar-fringed scales, the largest two of which stand nearly 
laterally while the remainder are dispersed along the side 
next the axis of the catkin.* Only one carpel is present. 
The ovary is shortly ovoid, finely pubescent, one-celled, and 
contains a single ascending parietal ovule with the micropyle 
directed upwards. The green or slightly reddish style is 
attached a little at one side and in anthesis curves outwards 
and becomes grooved on the stigmatic side, or somewhat 
flattened, with the stigmatic surface undulated, possessing 
the general characters of wind-pollinated stigmas. The 
placenta and stigmatic groove are turned away from the 
axis and face the bract, a very unusual position for the 
suture in a monocarpellary flower, and one which appears 
to indicate that the flower is in reality reduced from a 
former state in which there were two carpels radially ar- 
ranged with reference to the bract, or perhaps a larger num- 
ber; and this inference that the simple flower of Letinera 
has been formed by the reduction of an originally more com- 
plex flower is further supported by the presence of a rudi- 
mentary perianth about the pistil, and by the reported 
occurrence of abortive pistils near the end of the staminate 
catkins in some instances,f and of one or more stamens 
within the scales of occasional pistillate flowers. 
The fruit is an erect compressed dry drupe measuring 
* Eichler (Blithendiagramme, ii. 42) calls attention-to the large size 
of the lateral scales, which, from analogy with Myrica, he regards as 
bractlets, considering the others as a perigone, and Van Tighem & 
Lecomte (1. c. 184) recognize a calyx as present in the pistillate flower. 
Heim (Ass. Frang. J. c. 231) on the other hand speaks of the absence of 
both calyx and corolla, in agreement with Baillon, who speaks of the 
whorl of scales as a false calyx (1. c. 240, note). 
+ Oliver, Hooker’s Icones, J. c. p. 34. 
t Baillon, Hist. vi. 240, note. 
