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ABSTRACT OF A PAPER 



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Rev. ANDREW JOHNSON, M.A., F.L.S., 

 JANUARY 26th, 1887. 



Note on a Hermaphrodite form of male Begonia. 



In the Summer of 1886, a Begonia of the Veitchii type 

 produced an abnormal flower. From the centre of the 

 staminal group sprang a single slender vertical style, rising 

 well above the stamens, and carrying a well defined rotate 

 stigma, which bore upon its surface a slight depression. 

 It is to be regretted that the style was not sketched at this 

 stage. Attention was at once arrested by an appearance 

 so totally unlike the normal female organ (which, as is well 

 known, consists of three styles, each bearing spiral 

 branches), and the growth was carefully observed. 



The substance of the style slowly dilated at a distance 

 from the base of about one-third of its length, soon forming 

 a small oval bag. This vesicle continued to expand in an 

 upward and downward direction, the process continuing 

 after the flower was plucked, and placed in water for the 

 purpose of delineation. At length the downward extremity 

 of the swelling reached the point of insertion, taking the 

 flask-like form shewn in the enlarged drawing exhibited to 

 the meeting. Whilst this expansion of the style was going 

 on below, the flat stigma became more and more depressed, 

 until it assumed the enfiindibuliform appearance shown in 

 the illustration. The inner and outer margins of the funnel 

 were beautifully ciliated. There was no trace whatever of 

 the inferior ovary of the normal Begonia flower, but the 

 finished figure strikingly resembles that of the female organ 

 of Laurusnobilis with its flask-shaped superior ovary. 



