GENERAL REMARKS. 207 
giora: filamentis teretibus crassis; loculis globosis discretis ; ; 
sulco dehiscentibus ;—-Ovarium subrotundo-compressum. 
Stylus teres etc. etc., 
M. Richard says, that the genus is certainly exalbuminous, 
yet I find traces of the existance of albumen. 
The axis of these plants is doubtless the line from which the 
fronds and flowers spring, and always on opposite sides. Al- 
though after maturation of the seeds, either side may produce 
fronds. This axis always has a tendency to elongate, and in 
some cases actually produces fronds: which have been hence 
called petioled. 
The spatha is a leaf bearing in its axilla the flowers: it is 
absent, as might be expected in Grantia in which the flower 
is centrical and terminating the axis. 
Caulescent and leafly Lemnacez may therefore be expected, 
and the essence of the order is a nakedness of flowers, hypo- 
gynous stamina and peculiar conformation of the seed. 
The greatest objection to my view is, that in all other cas- 
es known to me; the growth of the plumule is in an oppo- 
site direction to that of the radicle. 
This direction is reverted to however in the development of 
the primordial frond. 
The figures of L. C. Richard leave but little to he desired, as 
they afford an excellent instance of the proper mode of bota- 
nical drawings ; 
The observations of Richard differ from those of Wilson, 
in his supposing that the cotyledon (radicle) is undivided, 
that hence the plumule makes it exist by laceration, and last- 
ly that the radicle of the plumule pierces through the /ower or 
whiter side of the cotyledon. 
Tt would rather appear that the cotyledon becomes subse- 
quently liberated from the seed, and in this state it hasa 
marked resemblance to the radicle. 
The dichotomy must be examined for when the terminal 
frond is developed it should be so before to lateral ones. 
The remarkable genus Spathacarpa may? in another view 
