510 Mr. Situ on a Plant which produces perfect Seeds 
and the similarity of the offspring to the parent would alone lead me to con- 
clude that it is not the result of cross-fecundation. The circumstances con- 
nected with the situation of the plant in the garden, and the absence of allied 
male plants, as also the peculiarity of the natural order to which it belongs, 
which do not readily hybridize, led me to believe that no foreign pollen had 
fecundated the ovarium; and on watching the progress of the stigma all 
doubts were removed. The inflorescence is produced on the apex of small 
lateral branches in spikes of generally from three to five or more flowers: in 
its early stage, a reddish disc is seen seated within five or six small, subulate, 
villose, erect sepals; and on examination the disc is found to be a dilated, 
three-lobed, sessile stigma, and the sepals to be placed around the base of the 
ovarium. Each flower is seated on a thick, very short pedicel, studded with 
from one to four or five round, prominent, papilliform, shining glands, from 
which, in the young state, exudes a colourless viscid fluid. This fluid remains 
for some time on the surface of the glands in the form of a globule, and the 
terminal flower always has the greatest number of glands. The ovarium is 
three-celled, each cell containing one ovulum, attached to the apex of the 
inner angle of the cell; and in the course of four or five months the seeds are 
perfected and discharged with elastic force from the capsule; the whole pre- 
senting the usual structure of Euphorbiacee, such as it occurs in Croton, 
Phyllanthus, Cluytia, &c. I have already said, that the stigma consists of 
three connate lobes, which are more or less notched; at first the lobes are 
depressed on the ovarium, but as the ovarium swells they lose their reddish 
colour and become inclined upwards, retaining their succulent and healthy 
appearance till dried up by the ripening of the fruit: the surface has a granular 
appearance, derived from minute papillze, and showing no signs of having been 
acted upon by pollen. Spiral vessels occur in the thick part of the base of the 
stigma, and are doubtless connected with the vascular tissue of the ovarium. 
I have seen nothing like pollen-tubes. The stigmatic surface remaining so 
long unchanged affords a strong proof of its not having been acted upon by 
pollen, it being well known that the stigma of many plants remains for a long 
time unaltered, but soon after the application of pollen a change takes place, 
as is readily seen in Orchidec. 
On considering the circumstances above noticed, and in particular the 
