Mr. J. Miers on the Calyceracese. 181 



feet ; the tube of the corolla is considerably elongated into a 

 very slender tube, on the outside of which are seen five promi- 

 nences indicating the five transparent areolar glands, the tubillus 

 within being very short, the filaments distinct, and the anther- 

 cells, which are almost void of pollen, being almost, if not quite, 

 free j the segments of the border are of much thinner consist- 

 ence, and of a much greener hue : in these cases the globose 

 stigma is fully developed on the summit of the clavate extremity 

 of the long style, and the achaenium yields a perfect seed. In 

 the flowers last produced, and intermixed with the former, the 

 tube of the corolla is thick, only half the length of the others, 

 and so much thickened that the areolar glands become wholly 

 immersed, and are not perceptible; and the segments of the 

 border here exhibit the appearance of the gibbous double laminae 

 before described; the anthers, almost obsoletely polliniferous, 

 are nearly free ; the style is only slightly swollen at the apex, 

 and deficient of the globose stigmatic expansion ; the achaenium, 

 though attaining its full growth, does not always produce per- 

 fect seed; the corolla, in such instances, generally persists upon 

 the achaenium. Other flowers, again, are produced in an inter- 

 mediate state, the achaenium maturing its seed; but then the 

 stigma is always fully developed, as well as the anthers, which 

 are half united at their base into a syngenesious ring, and the 

 corolla usually falls off soon after the period of impregnation. 



In Boopis, Gamocarpha, and Nastanthus, the calycine lobes 

 are deeply concave or semi-navicular, owing to their involution 

 round the salient angles of the ovary, by which they become 

 more or less hollow or tubular within, their median nervures 

 being decurrent along the extreme angles of the ovary. When 

 the seed is matured, these lobes, being acute in Boopis, become 

 rigid at the point and acicular; in Nastanthus they remain 

 rounded, thick, and obtuse ; in Calycera and Acicarpha, where 

 the lobes are flatter, they greatly enlarge, becoming subulate 

 and rigid, and assume the form of very long, sharp, divaricate 

 spines, of unequal length ; in Anomocarpus, in the same capit il- 

 ium, some of the achaenia become spinescent, as in Calycera, 

 while others retain the form of short rigid teeth, as in Boopis, 

 both producing in like manner perfect seeds. In Nastanthus 

 and Anomocarpus, and sometimes in Boopis, the surface of the 

 epicarp is reticulated between the nervures with transverse, 

 crowded, parallel and almost scalariform venations, the intervals 

 often becoming swollen and assuming the appearance of trans- 

 verse rugae. 



In Calyceracece the florets are all crowded upon a broad fleshy 

 receptacle surrounded by an involucre, the leaflets of which are 

 in a single series almost free from one another, in Acicarpha; 



