!<; i Dr. Schleideu on the Structure of the Ovule in Plants. 



|)cilv Bpeaking curved downwards); but in reality erect. The 

 correctness of this statement is confirmed by the history of 

 development. As far as I am aware, no one has profited by 

 these inquiries of Brown, in order to solve similar anomalies 

 which obscure the clear perception of affinity; for which ob- 

 ject the Uanunculacea present an excellent opportunity. The 

 one-seeded plants of this family have been divided according 

 to the difference of pendent and erect ovules (?) into Ranun- 

 culacea and Anemonece ; and botanists have remained content 

 with believing in such an important distinction even between 

 plants so nearly allied to each other. But the ovule in these 

 two divisions is at a not very early state exactly similarly con- 

 structed, and is ovulum adscendens anatropum, figs. 1 — 2 ; at 

 a subsequent period the ovarium either grows alone upwards, 

 when we have an ovulum erectum anatropum, fig. 3, or the ova- 

 rium is compelled to employ for its development the space 



Fig- ! • , 



Fig. 4. 



a 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 3. 



below the ovulum, which then curves from the placenta down- 

 wards and becomes spurie pendulum, anatropum raphe aversa, 

 fig. 4. In several species no difference is perceptible at the 

 time of flowering (for instance between Ranunculus and Myo- 

 surus) ; and in all the others intermediate forms run so gra- 



