LINNEAN" SOCIETY OF LONDON. 27 



The number of stamens is 6, in two ■whorls, in the normal 

 Monocotyledon. This full number is only found in a very few 

 Cyperaceae ; and the few species which have 6 stamens are scat- 

 tered in different tribes of the Order. Thus the genus Eyncho- 

 spora, a very natural and well separated genus, contains 150 

 species ; of these, one has 6 perfect and similar stamens in each 

 flower, the other 149 species have 3 (or fewer stamens). Arthro- 

 sfylis, an isolated genus, has 6 perfect stameus. But in ScJioenus 

 we have five Australian species that have usually more than 3 

 stamens ; and. in several of these we have (as stated by Bentham 

 in ' Plora Australiensis ') the number of stamens varying from 

 6 to 3 in the same plant, and indeed in the same spikelet. 



In spikelets which terminate in male or barren glumes the 

 flowers often get weaker towards the top of the spikelet ; the 

 lower produce nuts, have 3 stigmas and 3 stamens ; an upper 

 flower has perhaps a pistil with 2 stigmas or an imperfect pistil 

 that does not produce a nut, above that is perhaps a male flower 

 with 3 stamens, no rudiment of a pistil, above that a male flower 

 with 2 or 1 stamens, above that a small empty glume. 



Now in these instructive cases of Schoenus we may see on one 

 spikelet the lowest flower with 6 stamens regularly placed ; 

 further up the spikelet we may find a flower with 5 stamens (the 

 posticous stamen quite gone) ; higher up still we get flowers with 

 3 stamens only — the 3 anticous. 



Throughout the great mass of Cyperacese, say 98 per cent, of 

 the whole, we find 3 perfect stamens only, which are always 

 anterior — placed exactly as in these Schoenew. It has always 

 been assumed that these 3 stamens form one whorl, that the 

 other whorl of stamens (? the interior) is absent, and that the 

 anticous position of these 3 stamens is due merely to the two 

 posticous ones being squeezed outwards by the pressure of the 

 axis in these axillary flowers. I read a paper here one evening 

 to show that the 3 generally remaining stamens in Cyperacese 

 are 1 of the exterior, 2 of the interior whorl. They are so 

 undoubtedly in these small Schoenecs. In my paper I attempted 

 to show, further, that in a large number of the tribe Scirpece the 

 posticous stamens are present as bristles or scales, and that 

 therefore of the 3 perfect stamens 2 of them must belong to the 

 interior whorl. But I did not persuade my friend Mr. J. G-. 

 Baker, who instanced the large number of flowering monocoty- 

 ledons which have zygomorphic axillary flowers and 3 stamens 

 of the exterior whorl only. But I am not sure that in these cases 

 the three anticous stamens belong always to the exterior whorl ; 

 and if it can be proved that they do, I do not admit that the analogy 

 upsets the plain case of Schoenus. So I hold my own opinion 

 about Cyperacese, against the great monocotyledonist. 



The further reduction of stamens (^. e. from 3 to 2 or 1) 

 appears due to pressure or weakness. Small species of Gyperus 

 very often have 2 stamens only. It continually occurs that 



