SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES. 375 



exterior row, because alternate with the petals, inclined forwards into the 

 centre of the Howers ; and in some instances the five styles were actually 

 curled round the stamens in a very singular manner. In some flowers on 

 the same plants, as is the habit with this species, the number of styles 

 was reduced to four, or even three; and equally in the case of tliese'un- 

 symmetrical flowers three or four of the stamens stand forward from the 

 rest, to receive, as it were, the embraces of as many styles. There were 

 quite a number of flowers expanded which presented the above features. 

 — Alfred W. Bennett. (See also ' Nature,' for October 26.) 



Akrangement for Cross-Ffrtilization of the Flowers of 

 ScROPHULARiA NODOSA.-^It is probable that the dichogamy of the flowers 

 of Scrophiiloria has been already observed and published ; "but it was new 

 to me, until pointed out this season by my assistant Dr. Farlow. The ar- 

 rangement is this : — In the freshly-opened blossom the upper part of the 

 style is bent forward so as to bring the stigma now ready for pollen, just 

 over the patent lower lip of the corolla ; the anthers, not yet dehiscent, 

 are out of sight towards the bottom of the corolla ; the filaments being 

 strongly recurved or doubled over. In the blossom a day or two older, 

 the stigma has dried up, the style become flabby, and the filaments have 

 straightened so as to bring the four anthers up to the gorge of the corolla 

 at the base of the lower bp, just back of the now withering stigma ; the 

 transversely dehiscent anthers are now widely open. The flowers are 

 visited by honey-bees, which barely insert their heads into the gorge of the 

 flowers ; the chin or throat of the bee, coming into contact with the lower 

 lip of the corolla, is necessarily dusted Avith pollen from the older flowers; 

 and this pollen, in the passage from flower to flower and plant to plant, is 

 inevitably api)lied to the stigma of the freshly-opened flowers, which alone 

 is in condition to receive it. The nectar sought by insects is here secreted 

 abundantly by the corolla, at its base on the posterior side, and to some 

 extent by the disk which girds the base of the ovary ; the posterior face 

 of tlu' scale, which represents the anther of the fifth stamen, is apparently 

 glandular, but hardly, if at all, nectariferous. Bees plunge their proboscis 

 to the bottom of the flower. — Dii. Asa Gray in SiUuiiaits Journal, 

 August, 1871. 



PIypocotyledonary GEMMATION is of uucommon occurrence. My 

 altention has been called by Mr. Gucrincan, the gardener of the Cambridge 

 ]?otanic Garden, to a remarkable instance which occurs in all our seedlings 

 oi Del jildniKtii nudicaule, tlieuni(iue red or red-and-yellow-ilowered species 

 of California. As this species is now in European cultivation, and a pro- 

 bable variety of it — D. cnrdinah — was raised aiul figured in England 

 several years ago, the peculiarity in question is likely to have been noted ; 

 but I have seen no account of it. In germination the slender radicle 

 elevates a pair of well-formed ovate cotyledons in the usual way. These 

 acquire full development, but no plumule appears between them ; conse- 

 quently the primary axis is here arrested. Soon a nasiform thickening is 

 formed undeigronnd at the junction of the lower end of the radicle with 

 the true root ; from this is produced a slender petioled 3-lobed leaf, which 

 comes up l)y the side of the primary plantlet ; soon a second leaf appears, 



