152 FisHer: SEED DEVELOPMENT IN THE GENUS PEPEROMIA 
greater number of four-nucleate sacs than of two-nucleate or 
eight-nucleate ones. In forty-two ovules, taken at random, fen 
two-nucleate, thirty four-nucleate, and twelve eight-nucleate sacs 
were found. 
PEPEROMIA METALLICA Lind, & Rod. 
The material for the study of Peperomia metallica Lind. & Rod. 
was obtained from a plant growing in the greenhouse of The Johns 
Hopkins University at Homewood. 
In the original description of this plant by Rodigas (58), there 
was no description of the flowers, and it seems that none has been 
published since.* In fact Linden and Rodigas were not absolutely 
sure that the plant was a Peperomia, although they named it and 
described it as such. The flowers, however, leave no doubt that 
the plant is a true Peperomia. They are borne on a spike, which 
varies from 3.5 cm. to 7.5 cm. in length, and which is rather 
slender, resembling that of P. verticillata in size, and the flowers are 
loosely scattered along the spike and are only slightly sunken in 
the axis. The rachis is smooth except for the presence of hy- 
dathodes very similar to those in the other species of Peperomia. 
The flower consists of two stamens and a single carpel, the latter 
being sessile in the axil of a peltate bract, which very closely re- 
sembles those of the other species of the same genus studied by the 
writer. The anthers are bilocular; the stigma is sessile and 
penicillate; and the carpel contains a single orthotropous ovule: 
In fact, the whole flower and all its parts closely resemble those 
found in other Peperomias. 
The development of the carpel and ovule, from the differentia- 
tion of the primary archesporial cell up to the four-nucleate stage 
of the embryo sac, is essentially the same as that observed in P- 
refleca. The nucleus of the definitive archesporial cell or embry 
sac mother-cell shows synapsis before division. 
A striking abnormality was observed in this species. The 
single plant, cultivated in the greenhouse of The Johns Hopkins 
University, when flowering in the autumn of 1912 bore only four 
or five spikes each of which was interrupted by a zone of small 
vegetative leaves, as shown in Fic. 35. Flowers are borne on the 
* Dr. Casimir de Candolle writes me that his unpublished enanisieripts ; contain 
a dingncela of this species including the flowers 
