370 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



refers, formed the fifth vohime of his Herbarium, and was acquired 

 by Sir Joseph Banks with the four volumes containing plants in 

 1793. Mr. Boulger, in his interesting sketch of the History of 

 Ceylon Botany appended to Trimen's Flora of Cei/lon, seems to be 

 unaware that these drawings are in this country. Linnaeus (in his 

 preface to Flora Zeijlanica) thus describes the volume: " Quinta 

 demum tomus, ut pr^necedentes in forma atlantica, icones circiter 

 400 novarum plantarum zeylanicarum continebit artificiosa manu 

 delineatas." The drawings are in large part named by Linnaeus 

 and annotated by Dryander ; three of them are reproduced in Flora 

 Zeijlanica. — Ed. Journ. Bot.] 



Some discussion having arisen as to the true character of these 

 structures and their mode of germination, it seemed worth while to 

 look up the literature of the subject. 



Paul Hermann, in his Horti Academici Liigduno-Batavi Cataloijus 

 (1687), p. 684, mentions them in Crimun asiaticum (which he calls 

 " Lilium zeylanicum umbelliferum et bulbiferum"), as ** semina 

 fusca angulosa, qu[E in bulbos grandescunt, conceptacula disrum- 

 punt et germina protrudunt"; he says that tlie same " semina 

 ijulbacea " are to be observed in other " lihaceous " plants. Her- 

 mann's figure is reduced from an excellent drawing (no. 131 in his 

 collection, now in the Department of Botany, British Museum). 



A hundred years later, Gaertner, in his De Fructibus (i. p. 42, 

 t. xhi.), describes and figures fruits and seeds of Bulbine aslatica. 

 There is some doubt as to the plant to which Gaertner refers. The 

 large number of seeds in the ovary-chambers precludes Crinum. 

 asiaticum, with which Bnlhine asiatica has been considered syn- 

 onymous. He states that the numerous flattened triquetrous 

 seeds have a double integument, the outer of which is thick and 

 " coriaceo-spongiosum," and include a fleshy endosperm and 

 monocotyledonous embryo, which very soon grows out into a 

 terete bulb-bearing shoot, so that the ripe capsule is often filled 

 with germinating bulbils instead of seeds. 



F. K. Medicus, in his Pjianzenphijsiolo(jic-Ab]iandlun(jen (1803) 

 (li. p. 127), refers to a tuber-formation in the capsule of Crinum 

 bracteatuin. 



In his Prodrouius (1810), Robert Brown mentions the bulbiform 

 seeds of Crinum, Amanjilis, and Calostennna, which, he says (p. 297), 

 consist of a fleshy substance, often green outside, of a cellular 

 nature, and without spiral vessels, which, inasmuch as it is organic 

 and grows by intussusception, can hardly be called albumen ; 

 within is a monocotyledonous embryo. In a paper on some 

 remarkable deviations from the usual structure of seeds (Trans. 

 Linn. Soc. xii. p. 148), published in 1818, he again refers to 

 them, but says: "On a more careful inspection, of those seeds 

 at least in which the separation precedes the visible formation 

 of tlie embryo, I now find very distinct spiral vessels — these enter 

 at the umbilicus, ramify in a regular manner in the substance of 

 the fleshy mass, and appear to have a certain relation to the central 

 cavity where the embryo is afterwards formed.'" But a far more com- 



