108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



this season, from the earliest opening till the last blossom appeared, and find 

 that it is much more nearly monoecious than the above quotation would imply. 



There are three different sets of flowers corresponding to the thrice com- 

 pounded branchlets of the large panicle. When the flower scape elongates, it 

 seems suddenly arrested at a given point, and a very strong umbel of female 

 flowers appears at the apex. A great number of secondary branches appear 

 along this main one ; and they also suddenly terminate each with an umbel 

 of female flowers. From these secondary branches a third series appear, and 

 these flowers are well filled with anthers that are abundautly polleniferous. 

 The female organs of these flowers of the third class, are, however, defective, 

 as only a few bear capsules, and in these, a large portion of the seeds have no 

 ovules. The polygamous character is confined to this third series of flower, 

 the first two having purely pistillate blossoms. In these there do not seem 

 to be the rudiments of stamens. 



The most remarkable part of this process of development is, that the whole 

 of this first series of female flowers should open so long before the male 

 ones come, that they fall unfertilized. Most part of the second series also 

 fall, and the crop of seeds is mainly made up of a few of the last opening ones 

 of the section, and the comparatively few hermaphrodite ones which are 

 found in those of the third class. It is a matter for curious speculation what 

 special benefit it can be to the plant to spend so much force on the produc- 

 tion of female flowers too early to mature, and then producing such an im- 

 mense mass of pollen to go utterly to waste. 



It may not be amis to note, that in the common carrot the earlier strong- 

 umbels have often a male flower in the center; and that while the usual 

 flowers are of a pure white, this one is of a crimson color. In the central 

 umbels of Aralia spinosa, and at times on spurs along the branchlets of the 

 panicle are similar colored processes, so small that their form cannot be made 

 out by a common pocket lens. Our fellow member, Dr. J. Gibbons Hunt, 

 makes them out, under the dissecting microscope, to be vase-like forms with 

 five minute reflexed segments, and with a small solid disk in the centre. It 

 is interesting as evidently being a successful attempt of an abortive flower 

 to simulate in some respects a real one of another character. 



Examining, also, the flowers of the allied European Evergreen Ivy, lied era- 

 Helix, L., I find similar laws of distribution of the sexes as in Aralia spinosa, 

 with the addition of a somewhat different structure in the male from the 

 female flowers. 



In Europe the plant is described as often having a single umbel as a 

 flower spike. It is quite likely in these cases the flowers are hermaphrodite. 

 In all the cases I have met here, the inflorescence is a compound of several 

 umbels, a terminal one female, and the lateral ones male, as in Aralia. 

 But there are rudiments of stamens in the flower, and in occasional instances 

 I find a filament developed; but never, so far, with any polleniferous anthers. 

 The flowers of the central female umbel have rather longer and stronger 

 pedicels than the lateral male ones. The calyx is united with the ovarium 

 for one-half its length, and the latter much developed in the unopened flower. 

 In the male the segments of the calyx are two-thirds free, and the petals are 

 much longer than in the female flowers. 



As in Aralia spinosa, the male flowers do not open until some time after the 

 female ones; and not before some of the latter, impatient of delay, have fallen 

 unfertilized. 



I have so often and in so many varied ways demonstrated to the Academy 

 that in plants the male element is a later and inferior creation, that it 

 seems almost superogatory to point out that these plants illustrate the same 

 principle. But it is part of the record of what I believe to be unobserved 

 facts in relation to these species, therefore I briefly allude to them. 



[Sept. 



Issued November 1st, 1870. 



