140 FisHer: SEED DEVELOPMENT IN THE GENUS PEPEROMIA 
had been brought from Jamaica and the other had been collected by 
Professor C. J. Chamberlain in March, 1908, at Xalapa, Mexico. 
The flower in this species consists of two stamens and a single 
carpel, which is sessile in the axil of a peltate bract (Fic. 4). 
These bracts, which are homologous with leaves, rather closely 
resemble in shape the peltate leaves of some other species of the 
genus (e. g. those of P. arifolia). 
There is no evidence—not even rudiments—of calyx or corolla. 
The flowers are borne upon a terminal spike, which measures 
15-25 mm. in length and 1.5—-2.0 mm. in diameter. The flowers 
are arranged in such a close cylindrical spiral or helix that 
a cross-section of the spike frequently shows from five to seven 
flowers in almost the same plane. In the early stages the flowers 
are completely covered by the overlapping bracts, the upper edge 
of each bract being outside—a necessary result of the acropetal 
mode of development of flowers and bracts on the spike. In each 
carpel is borne a single, orthotropous ovule, with a single integu- 
ment (Fic. 4). The sessile stigma, with its numerous finger-like 
papillae, is limited to the anterior or lower part of the carpel, the 
stylar canal opening just above the stigma. 
The bracts and their axillary flowers have their origin in the 
periblem, and their development, so far as observed, very closely 
coincides with that described by Schmitz (63) for P. urocarpa 
Fisch. & Mey. (= P. ionophylla Griseb.). 
The flowers are not only initiated in acropetal succession, but 
they reach maturity in the same order, there being a great deal 
of difference between those at the base and those at the apex of 
the spike, especially in the earlier stages of development. In this 
character the flowers of Peperomia are to be distinguished from 
those of the genus Piper in so far as the species examined in this 
study are concerned. In the latter the flowers originate acrop- 
etally on the spike, but they all reach maturity at practically 
the same time. 
As is characteristic for all xerophytic species seen by the 
writer, each flower with its subtending bract is sunk in a depression 
in the inflorescence axis. The depth of the depression may prac- 
tically equal, or even slightly exceed, the height of the ovule; 
and this relation obtains without much change from the time the 
