M. Duchartre on the Organogeny of the Malvaceae. 245 



a plane anterior to that of the filaments, alternating with their 

 five groups, — lobes which we observe in many of the Malvacea, 

 although they are barely perceptible, and even are entirely want- 

 ing in many others. MM. Dunal and Moquin-Tandon recog- 

 nised them, and considered them as the border of a five-lobed 

 disc. But the nature of the disc is far from rigorously defined, 

 and in many cases this term exactly applies to abortive whorls, 

 as may be seen in many Vinifera, in the Myrsineay &c., — families 

 which are equally remarkable by the opposition of their stamens 

 to the petals, to which they are equal in number. M. Duchartre 

 mentions this example of the Myrsinece as exhibiting exactly 

 the sjrmmetry of the Malvacea, with this difference, that a single 

 stamen only corresponds to each petal. We do not agree with 

 him in this opinion, but think that in the Myrsinece there are 

 two whorls of stamens independent of the corolla, the external 

 or that alternating with the petal being metamorphosed or abor- 

 tive. This appears to be demonstrated by the flowers of Theo- 

 phrasta, or better still by Jacquinia. 



The author, arriving at the pistil of the Malvaceae, finds in their 

 diiFerent genera variations which are sufficiently considerable 

 to establish four diff*erent categories, which he successively ex- 

 amines. In the first the quinary symmetry is at once apparent, 

 and the five carpels differ but little in their mode of development 

 from the views and theories generally adopted. In fact, we know 

 that each carpel is considered as a leaf folded on itself, and that 

 numerous organogenic observations exhibit this organ to us in 

 the form of a minute scale which soon becomes concave internally, 

 then tends more and more to close up by the approximation of 

 the borders of the concavity, the adhesion of which completes 

 the formation of the ovary and forms a perfectly closed cavity, in 

 which one or more ovules subsequently become developed. Now, 

 imagine five of these scales or plates soldered together by their la- 

 teral surfaces, we then have the first condition of the pistil of Hi- 

 biscus. That will be a small border having five angles, which alter- 

 nately project and recede internally ; the projecting angles corre- 

 spond to the borders of five carpels, approximated in pairs, and 

 these angles projecting more and more and converging, terminate 

 by uniting so as to form a quinquelocular ovary. But at a still 

 earlier period, before the internal projections were marked, we 

 had a pentagonal border which soon becomes festooned by five 

 tubercles, the first indications of the styles. 



In a second category, Malope for instance, we also observe 

 a pentagonal border, the five angles of which are opposite to the 

 petals, and consequently correspond to the place which five nor- 

 mal carpels should occupy. That border of the pentagon which 

 is first united sends out a series of rounded tubercles, which sub- 



