|i4 Zoological Collections, Invertebrata. 



column or rib projects into the cavity of the intestine, on the anal side, along the 

 greater part of its course ; its walls are coated with a dark orange-rpd m,atter, 

 easily rubbed oiF. Ovary situated between the midcULe pf the br*t\chial i^eiQ. 

 brane and the mass of the intestines. 



The species being rare, I could not procure a sufficient number of specimens to 

 enable me to prosecute farther the examination of its structure ; but the details 

 already given are sufficient to indicate its more striking peculiarities, and to point 

 it out as differing, in several particulars, from the species already described. 



It occurred in East Lock Tarbet, Argyleshire, adhering to dead branches of 

 some land shrub.— £</. New Phil. Journ. Oct. 1830, p. 240. 



BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS. 



The Flower of a Plant a mere Leaf. — Linnaeus long ago asserted that '* the 

 flower of a plant was only a transformation of a leaf," an idea which has been 

 since more fully proved by De Candolle and others. Du Petit-Thouars, from 

 new considerations, has lately endeavoured to render this proposition more com-, 

 plete, by changing it into the following : — That the flower is a transformation ot 

 the leaf and annexed leaf-bud ; the leaf gives rise to the stamens, the calyx, and 

 corolla when there is one ; and the bud gives the fruit, and consequently the 

 seed. It would be tedious to enter into his proof of this, or of another proposi- 

 tion which he derives from it : — that the greater number of flowers is formed oi^ 

 four series or rows of organs, of which the three lower, (at least in the dicotyle- 

 dones,) are most frequently composed of five leaves ; the fourth, which is at the 

 same time the highest, often presents a smaller number of parts. That the qui- 

 nary number prevails in dicotyledonous, and the ternary in the monocotyledonous^ 

 plants, is allowed by all botanists, and M. du Petit-Thouars thinks he has discover- 

 ed the reason, in the manner in which the fascicled vessels or vascular tissue divide 

 on entering the leaf; but too many anomalies occur. He derives also the quinary 

 number from a different view of the subject : — when leaves alternate on a branch, 

 by looking at them along the axis of the branch, they will be observed to be placed 

 spirally, so that the sixth is in the same line with the first, or, in other words, 

 five constitute the spiral, and when these are converted into sepals or petals, we 

 must have a quinary arrangement ; but objections to this view may be raised 

 from the circumstance of the petals alternating (unless abortive) with the calycine 

 segments, whereas by his theory we might expect them to be opposite. Again, 

 leaves which are alternately opposite, would have the fifth under the first, or 

 would have a spiral of four, and consequently a calyx and corolla constantly of 

 the same number of parts; but we know in many such the quinary series is as fre- 

 quent as in plants with alternate leaves. 



Turrites a/pes/m, Schleicher. — Professor Koch has lately gathered this (which is 

 the Arabis ciliaris, Willd.) near the baths of Kreuth, and, after a careful examina- 

 tion, has determined it to be a mere hairy variety of the Arabis ciliata of Brown., 

 This plant, formerly supposed to have been confined to the Swiss Alps, was met 

 with on the Esquierry, a mountain near Bagneres de Luchon, in 1825, by Mr. 

 Amott and Mr. Bentham, in a botanical excursion made that year through the 

 Pyrenees. It appears in Mr. Bentham's " Catalogue, &c." as A. ciliata, but 

 was afterwards ascertained by Mr. Amott to be identical with Schleicher's plant. 

 Doubts being thus raised as to its being A. ciliata, a specimen was sent to the 

 late Sir J. E. Smith, who decided, as has been done by M. Koch, that it wa^ 

 scarcely a variety of Mr. Brown's plant. 



