;S06 Mr. Griffith on the Root- Parasites referred to Rhizantheae, 



the smallest conceivable degree. In all those I have examined with especial 

 reference to this point, I have found vascular fascicles to exist to by no means 

 an inconsiderable amount : in these fascicles, vessels with a spiral or annular 

 fibre are to be found, extending in Cytlnus and Mystropetalum into the seg- 

 ments of the perianthium. 



Dr. Lindley's converse argument, that in " Endogens or Exogens equally 

 developed spiral vessels would be most copious, and would exist in all the 

 foliaceous organs," is perhaps scarcely admissible, while such conflicting ideas 

 of relative perfection appear to prevail*. It is, however, a question that I do 

 not pretend to be competent to handle : leaving it aside altogether, I would 

 not be inclined to lay any great stress upon the total want of spiral vessels, or 

 ducts or their modifications, while we are in possession of such instances as 

 Podostemon, certain Naiades, and at least one Lemnacea. Dr. Lindley rids 

 himself of this objection, which he founds, I believe erroneously f, on Lemna, 

 by assuming that the small degree of development of these plants may be con- 

 sidered to account for the absence of spiral vessels. But this, however appli- 

 cable to any plant in its earlier stages of development, can scarcely be so 

 extended as to include plants sufficiently matured to present specific form, 

 and perfect, and indeed complicated embryos. 



3. Homogeneous or anembryous sporuliferous Seeds. — This, I believe, ex- 

 presses the ideas of M. Endlicher and Dr. Lindley ; but I must distinctly 

 observe, that the last botanist does not make use of the term homogeneous by 

 itself, which would be correct, but as connected with the want of an embryo 

 and with a sporuliferous mass. And in a later work, the ' Elements of Bo- 

 tany*/ he says, that the, issue of fertilization of these plants is a mass of 

 sporules analogous to those of Acotyledons. 



Such a character as that adopted by these botanists is open to the gravest 

 objections. It is not founded on observation, but on a hypothesis deduced 

 from the structure of the seeds of Scyhalktm fungiform* and Brugmansia 

 Zippellii, which I have not observed to exist in any of the subjects of this 



* See also the preface to Lindley and Hutton's ' Fossil Flora/ in which Monocotyledons are stated 

 to he as perfect, if not more so, than Dicotyledons. I have not the hook by me. 



t I have some recollection of having been shown spiral vessels in one of the English Lemnas by 

 that unrivalled phytotomist Mr. Valentine. + p age 2 26. 



