106 MR. MIERS ON SEVERAL INSTANCES OF ANOMALOUS DEVELOPMENT 
the nascent embryo. We will not here touch upon the still disputed point, whether the 
process of fertilization is the result of mere impact, or whether the boyau enters into the 
primary utricle; but will pass on to the fact admitted by all, that a new globular deve- 
lopment subsequent to this action (the future embryo) is generated within the primary 
utriele, which is suspended within the sac by a delicate thread, often extending with 
the growth of the embryo in its young state: this is called the suspensor, which in some _ 
few instances becomes highly developed, though more frequently it is of no great length, 
sometimes remaining as a short distinct thread that terminates the extremity of the 
radicle, and which I have pointed out as existing in the embryo of Stemonurus. After 
the fecundation of the embryo, in the manner just mentioned, the embryo-sac as before 
stated, either by absorption, or by amalgamation with the surrounding tissues, generally 
disappears; but in some few cases, as we have seen, it remains persistent, and Stemonurus 
affords an instance of this occurrence. . | 
I have entered into these details upon the nature and function of the embryo-sac, with 
the view of considering, whether a different amount of circumversion of this sac, respect- 
ively to that of the tunics of the ovule, may not have taken place in Stemonurus, which 
would thus account for the phzenomena under consideration. May we not conclude, with 
some degree of confidence, that the embryo-sac has remained to form a cavity in the 
albumen, which has been copiously moulded around it, by amylaceous granules flowing 
from the redundant amniotic fluid deposited among the cellular tissue of the surrounding 
envelope? Has the embryo-sac in this case moved a half-revolution on its centre more 
than the coats of the ovule, or vice versd? I cannot venture to affirm the fact, but 
the evidence is certainly presumptively in favour of such a conclusion. This indeed 
appears to me the only key to the solution of the paradoxical difficulty in question. It 
is, however, a point that can only be settled by observation on the growth and develop- 
ment of the ovule of Stemonurus, and as it involves a topic of great importance in a phy- 
siological and structural point of view, I would earnestly impress it on the attention of 
every botanist who has an opportunity of examining the ovule in a living state. In the 
mean time I call attention to the following evidence, which appears to favour this view of 
the question. 
perfectly with the other. 
t I may also affirm without hesitation that the genus 
Peruviana, I have examined several species and made 
future time to give the full characters of Mollinedia, Ci 
Tetratome of Pöppig is identical with Mollinedia of the * Flora 
drawings and analyses of the living plants. I purpose at some 
trosma, and Boldoa, for which I possess ample materials. 
