180 Mr. J. Miers on the Calyceracese. 



xxviii. 709) in his diagnosis of Boopis (Nastanthus) Gayana and 

 of Boopis {Nastanthus) compacta, wherein he describes the corolla 

 as being " breviter subcylindrica, membrana externa hyalina ab 

 interiori viridi remota." 



Another character of the Calyceracea, which serves to distin- 

 guish this family from the Composite, is deserving of some no- 

 tice. Throughout the latter order, the style is bifid at its apex, 

 and each branch is furnished towards its extremity with a stig- 

 matic surface, and frequently also with collecting hairs, that 

 assist in the transmission of the pollinic influence. On the con- 

 trary, in Calyceracese the style is undivided, clavate, and solid at 

 the extremity, and, though here covered with a rugose surface, 

 is quite deficient of any collecting hairs. Although the ovary 

 in both cases is 1-locular, the inference may be drawn from the 

 above circumstances, that the normal condition of the ovary in 

 the one case is to be 2-ovular, and in the other 1-ovular ; and 

 though we have no positive proof of this conclusion, many cir- 

 cumstances tend to favour the opinion of the biovular tendency 

 of the ovary in Composites. The placentary point of attachment 

 of the solitary erect ovule is always upon one side of the base of 

 the cell j and hence it may be assumed that, as there are two 

 stigmata, another placentary point normally 4 existed, which has 

 been suppressed * : this idea is again confirmed by the fact that 

 in many of the achsenia of Composite two parallel grooves or 

 longitudinal lines are seen upon the face opposite to the axis 

 of the capitulum, which probably indicate the line of junction 

 of two carpels, united there by their margins, without any intro- 

 flexure or tendency towards forming a dissepiment ; and it is 

 probable that branches of the corda pistillaris from each stig- 

 matic lobe run along these sutural edges of the carpels, as in 

 the Capparidacece for instance. From the same circumstance 

 we may also infer that the normal condition of the ovary is not 

 2-locular with an intervening dissepiment ; for in such case the 

 suppressed cell and the axis would be represented by a single 

 longitudinal line. This inference is of course only hypothetical, 

 but the suggestion is worthy of being kept in view. 



In Calyceracear the flowers in the same capitulum are not all 

 fertile ; for many of them are sterile and polliniferous, which are 

 promiscuously mixed with the fertile or hermaphrodite ones. In 

 Acicarpha, however, there is some exception to this rule ; for the 

 superior or more central florets are all sterile, while the more 

 external series are hermaphrodite and fertile. 



I have observed in Nastanthus, where the florets are promis- 

 cuously intermixed, that the flowers first produced are not per- 



* A similar view has been advocated by Mr. B. Clarke (Ann. Nat. Hist. 

 2 ser. xi. p. 45(>). 



