ILLUSTRATIONS (5). PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE OCEAN. 245 



ing some grains of fructifying pollen. Such hermaphrodism 

 is frequent in the whole family of Urticecv, but a singular 

 and hitherto unexplained phenomenon is manifested in the 

 forcing-houses at Kew by a small New Holland shrub, the 

 Coclebogyne of Smith. This phanerogamic plant brings forth 

 seeds in England without exhibiting any trace of male organs, 

 and without the bastard introduction of the pollen of any other 

 plant. "A species of Euphorbiacea?," (?) writes the distin- 

 guished botanist, Jussieu, " the Ccelebogyne, which, although 

 but recently described, has been cultivated for many years 

 in English conservatories, has several times borne seeds, 

 which were evidently perfect, since the well-formed embryos 

 they contained have produced similar plants. The most 

 careful observations have hitherto failed in discovering- the 

 slightest trace of anthers or even pollen in the flowers, 

 which are dioecious. No male plants of this kind are known 

 to exist in England. The embryo cannot therefore have 

 come from the pollen, which is wholly deficient, but must 

 have been formed entirely in the ovule."* 



In order to obtain a fresh and confirmatory explanation of 

 this important and isolated physiological phenomenon, I 

 lately addressed myself to my young friend, Dr. Joseph 

 Hooker, who after having accompanied Sir James Ross in 

 his Antarctic voyage, has now joined the great Thibeto- 

 Himalayan expedition. Dr. Hooker wrote to me as follows 

 from Alexandria, at the close of December, 1847, prior to his 

 embarkation at Suez: "Our Ccelebogyne still flowers with 

 my father at Kew, as well as in the Gardens of the Horti- 

 cultural Society. It ripens its seeds regularly. I have re- 

 peatedly examined it with care, but have never been able to 

 discover a penetration of pollen utricles into the stigma, nor 

 any traces of their presence in the latter or in the style. In 

 my herbarium the male blossoms are in small catkins." 



(5) p. 212 — ''■Like luminous stars." 



The phosphorescence of the ocean is one of those splendid 

 phenomena of nature which excite our admiration, even when 

 we behold its recurrence every night for months together. 

 The ocean is phosphorescent in all zones of the earth, but he 

 who has not witnessed the phenomenon in the tropics, and 

 * Adricn de Jussien, Cours elementaire de Botanique, 1840, p. 463. 



