106 The Irish Naturalist, May, 



Another point to which I wish to draw attention is the 

 statement that the stamens in the female flowers are " quite 

 destitute of pollen." This greatly simplifies the primary 

 question, for it might have been necessary to prove by very 

 careful and delicate experiments not onl}- that the stamens 

 produce pollen-grains, but that these are fertile. Now, if it 

 can be shown that a tree which has borne a single perfect 

 berry has also produced a single pollen-bearing stamen, the 

 plant may be monoecious or it may be polygamous, or any of 

 the modifications of these, but it is not truly dioecious. 



It is, perhaps, hypercritical to remark that though Darwin 

 certainly implies that the Holly is dioecious, speaking, as he 

 does, of male and female trees, he nowhere states that such is 

 the case, his only positive statement being that he had never 

 found one that was really hermaphrodite. 



It is notable, too, that the paragraph immediately following 

 that which I have transcribed begins with the words — "The 

 plants hitherto described either show a tendency to become 

 dioecious, or apparently have become so, within a recent 

 period." May it not well be that the Holly belongs to the 

 former rather than to the latter category ? In the preface 

 (p. xvi.) Darwin quotes Mr. Hibberd to the effect that 

 hermaphrodite plants do occur amongst cultivated varieties 

 of Holly. 



The following are the dicta on the subject of such authorities 

 as I have at hand : — 



Sowerby (vol. ii., p. 221), says of the Ilex " flowers generally 

 perfect," and of Ilex A qtti folium (the Holly) " flowers frequently 

 imperfectly dioecious." 



Asa Gray, in his " Structural and Systematic Botany," under 

 the heading, "Suppression or abortion of parts" (p. 261), does 

 not mention the Holly, but this goes for very little. 



In Smith's " English Flora", vol. i.,p. 227, the Holly is stated 

 to belong to the Linnsean order Tetrandia Telragyuia, which 

 is, of course, a hermaphrodite one ; but he modifies this 

 by adding — " sometimes the flowers are 5-cleft, and the germen 

 is often wanting in some that are 4-cleft. The earlier flowers 

 least perfect." 



Gillet and Magnc, " Nouvelle Flore Franeaise," p. 95, 

 "Ilex, Fl. reguliere, herni." 



