1854.] Linnean Society. 339 



laginous juices, the absence of cotyledons, or their reduction to 

 microscopical proportions, offers an anomaly suggestive of many 

 considerations on the nature of vegetable reproduction. 



This structure vpas found to exist in every instance in the seeds 

 of the GarchiiecB and Tovomitece examined by the author ; and he 

 quotes the descriptions of Gaertner, Plumier, Graham, Roxburgh, 

 and Wight, in proof of the same general conformation. All existing 

 evidence, therefore, tends to prove the constant development in the 

 axis of the solid nucleus of the seeds in all Guttiferous plants, of that 

 peculiar process which the author considers to be the neorhiza ; for 

 our decision upon this point vi'ill determine in a positive manner, 

 the nature of the other parts of the seeds to which such various 

 conclusions have been assigned by previous botanists. This deter- 

 mination he considers to be proved by the drawings of Dr. Roxburgh 

 and the evidence of Dr. Wight, where the seeds of Xanthochymus are 

 figured in a state of germination : in a longitudinal section of the 

 seed in this state, as shown by these accurate observers, the same 

 linear process in the axis of the nucleus is depicted as that above 

 described ; the basal speck is there seen throwing out a long root, 

 while the apical nipple-shaped process has simultaneously become 

 prolonged, carrying up with it the leaflets of the growing plumule, 

 and from the lower part of the neck thus protruded, and beneath 

 the two lower scales shown to be the cotyledons, a second rootlet 

 is seen sprouting, tending first horizontally and then downwards. 

 This fact, the author states, proves beyond doubt, that the process 

 in question is the neorhiza ; for if it were the embryo imbedded in 

 albumen, as Gaertner affirms, it would not throw a descending shoot 

 from the neck of the plumular extension, as well as at the base ; nor 

 would the same result follow if it were the radicle enclosed in con- 

 fluent cotyledons, according to the view of Dr. Graham. The fact 

 is altogether fatal to the conclusions of Choisy, Cambessedes, and 

 most modern botanists, that the great mass of the nucleus consists 

 of two confluent cotyledons, and that the mammseform apex in the 

 ClusiecE is its radicle, even if those opinions had not been disproved 

 by the evidence offered in the preceding portion of this memoir. 



This view of the constitution of the nucleus is further confirmed 

 by an examination of its structure under the microscope, which the 

 author minutely details. 



