REMARKS ON SOME DIOICIOUS PLANTS. 229 
plants typical of the Asturian flora, and of the flora of North cen 
occur, not found elsewhere in the British Isles. The 
form the solitary outlying posts of the geographical distribution " 
the plants belonging to those floras. In Cork the interesting Neottia 
. gemmipara, Smith, Spiranthes cernua, Reichb., grows, which at one 
time was considered to be confined to Ireland, but has since been 
found to be a North American species. Again, in the county of 
Galway, that pretty little aquatic, Naias flexilis, another plant of the 
North American flora, occurs. In Kerry several of the Saxifragee of 
the Pyrenees appear, and also several of the Pyrenean Ericaceous 
plants extend from Kerry through Galway to Mayo, but stop there, as 
they are not found further to the east, south, or north of this island. 
lasnevin, July 1, 1864. 
[The specimen sent with this notice has been figured by Mr. Fitch for the * Journal 
of Botany,' and, at the request of Mr. A. G. More, been presented to the British 
Museum.—Ep. } 
REMARKS ON SOME DIOICIOUS PLANTS. 
By W. G. Situ, Esq. 
(Read before the Society of Amateur Botanists.) 
Of late years, various hypotheses have been started, both in this 
country and on the Continent, which, though more or less borne out 
by experiment, are on the whole so thoroughly opposed to all former 
experience, that believers in them have been but few. I allude in par- 
ticular to spontaneous generation, to the power possessed by Rotifers 
and some other animals to survive drying, baking in ovens at a great 
heat, saturation in powerful acids, etc., and on the application of some 
restorative to become once more full of life and instinct; and to the 
so-called parthenogenesis, or the possibility of certain female plants 
and animals possessing the power of fertilizing their own ovules and 
ovums without the action of the male principle. 
It is principally on the latter that I propose making a few remarks, 
and recording some of my own observations. 
In Bryonia dioica, and probably all other dioicious plants, I think we 
may start with the assumption that when the ovules have been fertilized 
