308 BOTANY [CHAP. X 



Letter 633 to the protrusion of pollen-tubes, you might like to hear (if 

 you do not already know the fact) that, as I saw this summer, 

 in the little imperfect flowers of Viola and Oxalis, which never 

 open, the pollen-tubes always come out of the pollen-grain, 

 whilst still in the anthers, and direct themselves in a beautiful 

 manner to the stigma seated at some little distance. I hope 

 that you will continue your very interesting observations. 



Letter 634 To J. Scott. 



Down, Nov. igth [1862]. 



I am much obliged for your letter, which is full of 

 interesting matter. I shall be very glad to look at the 

 capsule of the Acropera^ when ripe, and pray present my 

 thanks to Mr. McNab. I should like to keep it till I could 

 get a capsule of some other member of the Vandeae for com- 

 parison, but ultimately all the seeds shall be returned, in case 

 you would like to write any notice on the subject. It was, 

 as I said, 2 only " in desperation ' that I suggested that the 

 flower might be a male and occasionally capable of producing 

 a few seeds. I had forgotten Gartner's remark ; in fact, I 

 know only odds and ends of Botany, and you know far more. 

 One point makes the above view more probable in Acropera 

 than in other cases, viz. the presence of rudimentary placentae 

 or testae, for I cannot hear that these have been observed in 

 the male plants. They do not occur in male Lychnis dioica, 

 but next spring I will look to male holly flowers. I fully 

 admit the difficulty of similarity of stigmatic chamber in the 

 two Acroperas. As far as I remember, the blunt end of 

 pollen-mass would not easily even stick in the orifice of the 

 chamber. Your view may be correct about abundance of 

 viscid matter, but seems rather improbable. Your facts about 

 female flowers occurring where males alone ought to occur is 

 new to me ; if I do not hear that you object, I will quote the 

 Zea case 3 on your authority in what I am now writing on 



1 See Letter 608 (Lindley, Dec. i5th, 1861). Also Fertilisation of 

 Orchids, Ed. II., p. 172, for an account of the observations on Acropera 

 which were corrected by Scott. 



2 Letter 633. 



3 See Animals and Plants, Ed. II., Vol. I., p. 339: " Mr. Scott has 

 lately observed the rarer case of female flowers on a true male panicle, 

 and likewise hermaphrodite flowers." Scott's paper on the subject is in 

 Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh, Vol. VIII. See Letter 151, Vol. I. 



