IN FLOWERING PLANTS. ` 215 
mination of the canal is blocked up by a mucilaginous looking 
membrane, quite identical in appearance with that of the cap, 
with which it is no doubt continuous. A tube is seen passing 
down along the cap in a tortuous manner, and to engage itself 
in the secundinal opening. 
a. Mucilaginous yellowish tissue. 
6. Stigmatic canal and papille. 
c. Transparent membrane closing the end of the canal ; 
d. The cap. 
e. The tube; f. primine ; g. secundine: transparent ex- 
cept at its apex; A. its apex; 7. raphe; k. chalaza ; 
l. two boyaux passing down the canal, the upper 
one, passes round the funiculus above the under 
one, which takes the edge of the membrane às its 
guide. 
M. 2. An ovule with its funiculus, which is of a yellowish 
colour. ! 
a. Opening of the primine. 
b. Ditto secundine. , 
c. Cap. 
M. 3., a. Part of the cap with the adjoining tissue ; 6. two 
tubes running very tortuously, and both entering 
the foramen of the secundine. 
c. Apex of the secundine separated from the base. 
In certain instances the tubes reached the ovula, in 
Others they were not to be traced even into the* ovary. 
Yet these sections of the placenta, when immersed in 
water, gave out abundance of mobile granules, altogether 
similar to those contained in the boyaux. These facts are 
inexplicable, for it cannot well be supposed, that things 
easily appreciable at one time, should elude the observer at 
another, particularly when examined under the same circum- 
stances and with the same means. They rather give rise to 
doubts as to the universal necessity of the penetration of the 
pollen tubes to the ovula. 
Mergui: September 3rd, 1834. 
* MS. here injured. 

