S4 



thev are even now sometimes described as having sem'tna nuda* 

 and the plants are called gymnospermous. 



In the Valerianese the common seminal stem is still more 

 evident, presenting two nodi, the one below consisting in the 

 point of attachment of the calyx as well as of the carpellary 

 leaves, the other above, from whence proceed the partial 

 seminal pedicels.* In many species which I have happened 

 to examine belonging to the genera Valeriana L. Fedia t 

 Mcench.,Vale?ia?iella Mcench, and Patrinia Juss. immediately 

 under the outer integument of the fruit, formed as is known 

 by the calyx which covers it — along the exterior, somewhat 

 concave, surface of the cell that encloses the seed, it is easy to 

 observe a more or less thin threadlike organ, on which the 

 two abovementioned nodi are evident, and not unfrequently 

 there proceeds from the upper one a new internodium 

 forming the style, as I have seen it even in the perfectly 

 ripe fruit of Valerianella hamata Bast. I have said even 

 in the perfectly ripe fruit, for we must know that by the 

 general laws of vegetable life, all vegetative organs ap- 

 proaching to maturity, with the gradual breaking off of 

 their organic activity, lose also gradually their fulness, 

 turgor vitalis, and at length dry up and disappear, and on 

 that account this extracarpellary general seminal stem in 

 the Valerianese may have been easily overlooked by botanical 

 describers, not guided by speculations such as ours. I may 

 here remark en passant, that besides the evident presence of 

 three cells easily separable one from another without rupture 

 of the tissue in Nardostachys, Dufresnea, and Patrinia, I 

 have also observed sometimes in Patrinia sibirica that the 

 seed is not solitary, i. e. that one or two ordinary seedless 

 cells have contained a seed, though, it is true, less perfect and 

 smaller than the ordinary seed. This, amongst other things, 

 refutes the objections of Bunge relative to the structure of 

 the fruit in Valerianese, made in the 1st vol. of the Flora 

 Altaica. 



The constant presence of perfect seeds — differing only in 

 form from each other — in both cells of the ripe fruit of the 



* In the genus Nardostachys, DC. the attachment of the cocci, or cells, 

 appears to be similar to that of Asperugo, at least as far as can be judged 

 from DeCandolle's figure (Mem. sur la famille des Valerianees, pi. 1. 2.); the 

 seedless cells do not reach to the base of the fruit or nodus of the attach- 

 ment of the calyx. 



