698 Mr. Brown on the Organs and Mode of 



whose genera analogous processes are found, and in which 

 tribes alone cases of their complete development have hitherto 

 been observed, vessels not only generally exist in these pro- 

 cesses, but may often be traced to their expected origins, 

 namely, into those cords which also supply the inner lateral 

 divisions of the perianthium. 



Although not necessarily connected with my subject, I may 

 here advert to the remarkable monstrosity in the flowers of an 

 Ophrys described and figured by M. His* upwards of two years 

 before the appearance of my Prodromus. This account I did 

 not meet with till after that part of the volume relating to 

 Orchideae was printed ; and I have here only to observe re- 

 specting it, that neither the monstrosity itself, consisting of the 

 conversion into stamina of the three inner divisions of the peri- 

 anthium, nor the author's speculation founded on it, has any 

 connexion with my opinion which relates to the processes of 

 the column. 



M. His's paper, however, and the remarkable structure of 

 Epistephium of M. Kunth, have together given rise to a third 

 hypothesis, whose author, M. Achille Richard t, considers an 

 Orchideous flower as generally deprived of the outer series of 

 the perianthium, which is present only in Epistephium. He 

 consequently regards the existing inner series of perianthium, 

 or that to which the labellum belongs, as formed of metamor- 

 phosed stamina. 



This hypothesis, although apparently sanctioned by the struc- 

 ture of Scitaminese, I consider untenable ; the external addi- 

 tional part in Epistephium, which I have examined, appearing 

 to me rather analogous to the calyculus in some Santalaceae, in 

 a few Proteaceae, and perhaps to that of Loranthaceae. 



* Journal de Physique, Ixv. (]807), p. 241. 



f Mim, de la Soc, d'Hist. Nat. de Paris, iv. p. l6. 



With 



