BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 397 
some of them five inches in circumference, consisting of a 
tough outer-covering, open at the top, and an inner oblong 
bag crowned with three minute scales, apparently the same 
as what enlarge, and, in the perfect flowers, form the three 
outer divisions of the perianth. The bag, when cut open, 
is found filled with a gelatinous fluid and numerous oblong 
seeds. Strange to say, it was at the time these were in 
perfection, that the true flowers made their appearance, in 
which the three outer divisions of the perianth expand about 
an inch, and the inner delicate ones, as before remarked, 
3 inches; these are beautifully plaited in estivation. The 
stamens, about half an inch long, are from ten to fourteen 
in number, sometimes united by the lower parts of their 
filaments, into three bodies. The styles are seven or eight, 
but so divided as to seem as if twice that number.* In 
the Toodjay district I have seen the male flowers of Vallis- 
neria spiralis, floating about among the leaves of this plant. 
But it has now disappeared, and I do not know of its exist- 
ing at Swan River. I have found two species of Jsoefes, one 
of them the European J. lacustris ; and a Pilularia, probably 
the P. globulifera. 
* On my route to King George's Sound, as noticed in my 
journal sent to you, I was much struck with a plant of the 
at. Ord. Scrophularine, and this I have now found within 
ten miles of my present residence, on the top of some quart- 
zose hills. The seed-vessel is short, containing two cells, 
each cell having a single seed. The corolla is deep purple; 
but the most remarkable feature of the plantis its white or 
Sometimes blue-coloured calyx, which is permanent, and 
acts as wings to convey away the seeds as soon as they are 
ripe. There are plenty of specimens. In this letter I en- 
*The plant which Mr. Drummond has described, judging from the flowers he 
enclosed in his letter, isa Damasonium of Schreber and Brown (not of Jussieu), 
belonging to the Nat, Ord. Hydrocharidee, If introduced alive, it would be a 
great ornament to the aquarium in our stoves or greenhouses, It is probably 
different from the D. ovalifolium of Mr. Brown. 
