MR. T. H. CORRY ON ASCLEPIAS CORNUTI. 181 
the style-table on the other, a chamber is formed. This chamber, which will henceforth 
be spoken of as the “ ајаг chamber," has, when seen in transverse section taken in the 
region of the style-table, a somewhat pentagonal boundary (fig. 11), the base of the 
pentagon being formed by the groove on the style-table, which is lined by papillar epi- 
dermal cells, the sides by the lateral processes of the anthers (a.s, fig. 12), which, fusing 
with the style-table, effect the gynandrous union, while the opposite angle is constituted 
by the two anther-ale, which, though nearly parallel externally, diverge somewhat on 
their inner surface. The lower or more basal half of the alar chamber is rendered 
more spacious than the higher by the circumstance that in this region the lateral sides 
of the style-table themselves terminate by bending towards the axis to form the inferior 
or lower surface of the table. The inferior edge of the table, in the five intervals which 
separate the anthers, rests closely upon the upper edge of the continuous fleshy column 
which is formed by the connate filaments of the 5 stamens. 
In a transverse section taken just below the point where the inferior ends of the con- 
tiguous anther-alze arise and begin to diverge from the anthers, leaving between them 
the narrow alar fissure, the column formed by the filaments is found to exhibit, in a 
position corresponding to the interval between 2 anthers, a narrow ellipsoid space 
(el, fig. 9). This space, I believe, indicates that at this point the connate union which 
has taken place between the two adjacent anther-filaments is not in this region perfectly 
complete. It is enclosed on all sides by the tissue of the column. 
In a similar section, taken immediately above that last described, the external end of 
the ellipsoid space is continuous laterally with two grooves (gr, fig. 10, in a higher 
section), which run obliquely inwards to meet it. 
Proceeding still from below upwards, in a third section the еек! wall of the space 
is divided by a fissure passing through its middle, and the ellipsoid space is converted 
into a narrow open channel, while the remnants of the external wall form two minute 
light-green fleshy teeth. These teeth embrace between them the bases of a pair of 
anther-ale (m,m, fig. 10). Their function will be considered hereafter. 
Immediately above this, the tissue forming the two angles where the lateral oblique 
grooves join the ellipsoid space, increases in bulk. This takes place at first slightly, 
but as we proceed upwards it becomes very rapidly more marked, the tabular cells, 
which in the lower sections formed the angles, being borne at the ends of long 
processes of ordinary parenchymatous ground-tissue, with elongated cells, which pro- 
cesses are at first converging and then subparallel. The remains of the ellipsoid 
space (el, fig. 10), together with the open channel between the ale, form in this 
region, then, the prolonged lower end of the alar chamber, which in transverse section 
appears bounded by the anther-ale externally, but laterally and posteriorly by the 
original wall of the ellipsoid space. Rather above the middle of the al: the cells 
forming the lateral walls of the alar chamber become directly continuous at the internal 
end with the cells forming the internal vertical wall of the staminal column *, leaving 
the chamber for a very short vertical height open posteriorly as well as anteriorly. This 
* The internal vertieal wall corresponds to the upper surface of the petiole in an ordinary foliage-leaf, as is well 
seen by the relations of the fibro-vascular bundles in the filaments to their internal and external surfaces respectively. 
SECOND SERIES.—BOTANY, VOL. II. ФЕ 
