of the Ligulate Rays in Zinnia, $c. 157 
The parts of fructification of Zinnia vary exceedingly in 
number, and on this account there is not perhaps a more in- 
teresting genus in the whole class to which it belongs. While 
engaged examining a capitulum of Zinnia verticillata in the 
garden at Boyton in September last, my attention was arrested 
by a floret of unusual size occupying the centre of the disk ; 
and on removing and placing it under a common lens, I dis- 
covered that the limb was divided into 10 lobes; that it had 
10 stamina, and 10 stigmata, all perfect. On laying open the 
ovarium longitudinally, I found 5 embryos occupying the in- 
terior of its cavity, and connected together in a cluster: they 
were of unequal size, and their cotyledons were deformed and 
unequal, and in some instances solitary. I extended my re- 
searches to other capitula of the same species, and likewise 
to those of Z. revoluta, multiflora, and pauciflora, and found 
the deviations from the typical form of corolla frequent in 
all of them ; and that the limb varied with 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 
10 lobes; that the stamina were 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 10; and the 
stigmata, 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 8, or10. In such florets as had their limb 
divided into 3 or 4 lobes only, the stamina were sometimes of the 
usual number, 5; but in the others, the stamina were always 
found corresponding in number with the divisions of the corolla. 
The stigmata were found to be indefinite, and generally not in- 
fluenced by the number of the other parts of the flower: for in 
the usual form of corolla,—namely, with 5 lobes,—3 were as fre- 
quently observed as 2, and sometimes, although more rarely, 4, ʻ 
and 6; and in the 6-cleft corolla they frequently did not e ce: 
the ordinary number. In those flowers where th 6 segments 
of the corolla amounted to 8 or 10, the stigmata sometimes ` 
equalled that number; but in the 10-cleft corolla the stigmata 
were often found not to exceed 5. With an increased number 
of stigmata there is always a plurality of embryos : for example de, 
