﻿G60 Ostexfeld: Ruppia anomala sp. nov. 



and a connective with an outgrowth of a conical shape; the 

 thecae are round-ovoid with a slight furrow indicating their two 

 sacs. The pollen grains are of the same bow-shaped form as in 

 R. maritima and with the same delicate reticular thickenings of 

 the outer surface (see Graves, pi. 12). The female part of 

 the flower consists of two or four pistils of oblique-ovoid form 

 and with a peltate sessile stigma. The ovule and the integuments 

 do not show anything remarkable, and the finer study of the de- 

 velopment of the megasporangium was not possible owing to the 

 fact that the material available was all herbarium specimens. 



The peculiarity of the plant does not show itself before we come 

 to the fruit. The peduncle does not lengthen to any evident 

 degree after the fertilization; it remains short as in the subsp. 

 rostellata (Koch) Asch. & Graebn. of R. maritima. The main 

 point of distinction between our new species and the others 

 is the development of the stipe of the fruit. In R. maritima 

 and other species each sessile pistil after fertilization grows 

 out to a stipitate fruit, thus forming four free and distinct 

 drupelets which are long-stalked in most species, but short- 

 stalked in the var. brevirostris Agardh of R. maritima. In 

 our new species the stipes of the drupelets are united into one 

 common stipe (a podogynium), upon which four longitudinal fur- 

 rows show the lines of concrescence. At the top of the podogynium 

 the drupelets are placed in a star-like manner; their form does not 

 show any essential difference from that of the drupelets in R. 

 maritima. The length of the podogynium varies much, sometimes 

 it is very short, not reaching that of the drupelet, sometimes it is 

 nearly twice as long; but it does not reach such dimensions as the 

 stipes of the free drupelets in R. maritima. 



Very often only one or two pistils are fertilized, and we then find 

 the abortive pistils as small warts at the top of the podogynium. 

 The concrescence of the stipes goes on in spite of the abortion of 

 some of the pistils; but the podogynium seems to remain shorter 

 in the cases where only one drupelet has been developed. 



I have had plenty material at hand, and the development of 

 the fruit has been the same in all specimens seen. Otherwise I 

 would have considered it as a teratological abnormity; now I must 

 regard it as the normal state of this plant. It places the species 



