C. H. Ostenfeld: Contributions to West Australian Botany. I. 29 



the apex (see Fig. 14 b). The stigmas and the distal part of the style 

 break off soon after fertilisation while the basal part of the style 

 remains. The wall of the pericarp consists of a thin fleshy outer 

 layer and a hard inner layer, and the fruit is consequently a drupe- 

 let, as in the other species. Sometimes both carpels of a flower 

 are fertilized and grow out as fruits (Fig. 14 b and c), but gener- 

 ally one is abortive (Fig. 15 and 16). As I have had only herbarium 

 material at hand, I cannot say how the embryo develops. On 

 making a section through a fruit, we find a fully grown embryo 

 with a long cotyledon, a short axis and no primary root. This 

 embryo bursts the apex of the pericarp 

 (fig. 146) and appears as a little seedling 

 (fig. 14 c), which by and by becomes larger. 

 For a long time it remains attached to 

 the mother plant. The figures show two 

 different stages; in the first (fig. 15 b) the 

 pericarp has been cleft longitudinally to 

 show the base of the seedling inside the 

 pericarp. The first leaves of the seedling 

 have a minute blade and a large sheath, 

 but gradually the size of the blades in- 

 creases and at last we find, still attached 

 to the apex of the mother shoot, a new 

 shoot 6 — 10 cm long and with well devel- 

 oped foliage leaves; the apices of these ^'leedSg" "stTad": 

 leaves are always truncate and blunt hering to the mother 

 (Fig. 16 a). At a certain moment the ftJ^SSffi-'Si 

 new plant (the seedling) is loosened from involucrum; x, of the 

 the mother shoot, but it takes the peri- $£&££££& 

 carp along with it, and now the pericarp bury, W. A. ( 3 / 4 nat size). 

 begins to alter, the fleshy outer part de- 

 caying while the hard inner layer remains. The hard parts of 

 the four lobes become divided into many parallel bristles, and 

 only now does it really deserve its name of a "comb" (Fig. 16ft). 

 The dark green seedlings with their pale yellowish "comb"-bases 

 float in the water until they become anchored in the ground 

 or to some fixed body at the bottom. Then the stem begins to 

 grow more rapidly, and at the same time lateral shoots issue from 

 the lower internodes and produce creeping rhizomes which develop 

 as described above (see p. 22). 



This peculiar kind of vivipary here found has — as rightly 

 pointed out by Mr. Black — a certain resemblance to the vi vi- 



