Vol. 38 NoLie 
BULLETIN 
OF THE 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
rs ee 
DECEMBER, tort 
Dioecism in the trailing arbutus, with notes on the morphology of 
the seed 
NEIL E. STEVENS 
The heteromorphic nature of the flowers of Epigaea repens 
has been the subject of occasional remark ever since the time of 
André Michaux. In his journal" (p. 138) written while exploring 
in the Alleghany Mountains in 1796, occurs this entry: ‘‘ Le 2 
Avril Epigea repens en pleine fleur comme les jours précedents: 
sur plusi. individus toutes les fleurs femelles sans rudiments 
d’Etamines et sur d’autres individus toutes les fleurs hermaphro- 
dites.” His Flora" (p. 250) contains this further note: “ Flores 
omnes in nonnullis individuis abortivi.”’ 
In 1868, Thomas Meehan” presented a paper before the 
Philadelphia Academy of Sciences in which he called attention 
to the fact that the pistillate flowers have “ fine cleft stigmas 
strongly recurved, exposing a glutinous surface; while the her- 
maphrodite ones keep the apex of the pistils closed.” From this 
he inferred that the plant was practically dioecious; and an exam- 
ination of a number of plants during the fruiting season apparently 
confirmed this belief, for he found that over half the plants set 
no fruit. 
Asa Gray? published in 1876 a short article on the floral struc- 
ture of Epigaea, in which he classifies the flowers in two main 
groups, each with two modifications. The first group is char- 
acterized by having well developed stigmas composed of five 
radiate lobes which are moist and glutinous and evidently well 
(The BULLETIN for November tort (38: 489-530. pl. 27-34. f. 1) was issued 1 D rgr1r.] 
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