301 THE FERTILISATION OF THE SUGAR-CANE. 



" Port Louis, Nov. 12th, 1881. 



"At the last sitting but one I made a communication to you on 

 the fertilisation of the Sugar-cane flower, and on the development 

 of the embryo in situ. I have reason now to regret that I was not 

 able at the time to produce the specimens in support of my case. 

 The little which is now left of them, and for which I have to thank 

 M. C. Baschet, I will place before you. You see in this little box 

 and the accompanying sketches the remains of a panicle : — 



"1. A scrap of peduncle with a pair of barren spikelets at each 

 of its nodes, one spikelet sessile, the other stalked, with glumes and 

 pales spreading at their base. 2. An internode producing at its 

 lower end a pair of spikelets; the sessile one, four times the ordinary 

 size, is an early development of fertilisation, and has both glumes 

 and pales spreading at its base. 3. A fertile spikelet, five times 

 ordinary size, stalked, and with spreading glumes and pales. 

 4. A pair of transformed spikelets ; a little plant replaces axis for 

 axis the sessile spikelet, and the peduncle bears a remnant of the 

 fertilised flower ; the latter is not then completely free. 



" The Secretary of the Societe Royale des Arts et des Sciences, 

 who arrived in Mauritius a month after the occurrence, says he has 

 seen a specimen of the panicles, and only observed the following: — 



1. Simple shoots, situated in the axillary portions of the inflorescence. 



2. That the extremities of the peduncles of the flowers which have 

 fallen, according to him, as usual, have no shoots. 3. That if the 

 grain had existed, it would occupy the same place as the flower, 

 viz., the end of the peduncle. 4. That each shoot separately 

 examined does not have the scales which envelope the flower, and 

 which persist in all grasses as an envelope of the grain. 5. That 

 these shoots bear no trace of a grain or a seed-leaf. 



" What we have already shown you would be a sufficient answer. 

 However, we will go further : — 



"1. The axillary portions of the inflorescence means, as you 

 know, the axils of all the divisions of the panicle. I suppose the 

 shoots are not found in all the angles at once, and that the 

 Secretary means only the axil between each pair of spikelets and 

 the last axis of the panicle. Now, those who have seen the little 

 plants have seen them, as in the specimen before you, in the place of 

 the spikelets axis for axis, and not in any axillary portion of the 

 inflorescence at all. M. C. Baschet and Dr. Le Bobinec have seen 

 it to be so. 



" 2. The extremities of the peduncles are not free from flowers, 

 and the flowers have not all fallen, for here is a peduncle with an 

 enormously developed flower which the Secretary calls a shoot. 



" 3. This development of the flower indicates, then, the position 

 of the grain at the extremity of the peduncle. 



" 4. The scales enveloping the flower, which we interpret as 

 glumes, do exist here. We are not confounding them with the 

 paleoles of the fruit. We say fruit, and not grain, because the 

 envelopes of the one are not exactly those of the other. 



" 5. The development of the grain causes the destruction of the 

 rest of the fruit, and that is why, at a certain stage, no trace of the 



