LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



23 



altogether. This reduction is very instructive, as we can trace 

 it, step by step, from the typical form, not only in many genera, 



Fig. 2. 



but in many species, and even in the same plant. [" Anticous " 

 is what botanists facetiously call the back of the nut ; accurate 

 Kuuth calls the nut here " dorsally compressed."] I suppose all 



Fig. 3. 



believers in development will assume that the symmetric 3-tri- 

 gonous ovary was the original, and the flattened the derived; so 

 1 occupy no time on that point. 



For instance, in Fimh^istylis pterygosperma (fig. 3) we have 

 the whole process exhibited in one species, and often in one plant. 



