uy Mee Ci oi alll 
Uu 
VARIATIONS IN EPIG/EA REPENS. 81 
On the 3rd of May I returned to the locality and found this hypo- 
thesis in all probability correct. The pistillate plants were in propor- 
tion about one-third that of the hermaphrodite, and could be readily 
distinguished after the flower had faded by the recurved stigmas above 
noted. All the plants that had shed their corollas were pistillate ; the 
apparently hermaphrodite plants having their corollas dry on the re- 
ceptacles, from which it was not easy to separate them—the scales of 
the fiyr and a part of the stem coming away with them. This is so 
well-known a feature of impregnation in the development of a fruit, 
that I need not dwell much on the importance of this fact, as showing 
the fertility of the pistillate, and the sterility of the opposite form. 
I engaged friends to furnish me specimens from other places. Dr. 
James Darrach finds them, as I have above described, in another locality 
on the Wissahickon. Miss Anderson sends me ten specimens from Edge 
Hill, Montgomery County, Pa., amongst which two are purely pistil- 
late, the rest varying much as in the Wissahickon specimens. Mr. 
Isaac Burk finds pistillate plants abound at Mount Ephraim, New 
Jersey, but there are abortive filaments without anthers, and he sends 
me one specimen of this character. Mr. Charles E. Smith sends me 
a dozen or so specimens from Haddonfield, hermaphrodite, and so ex- 
actly alike that they probably all come from one plant. Mr. E. Dif- 
fenbaugh sends ten specimens from another place in New Jersey, all 
witb anthers, but varying from nearly none to filaments three-eighths 
of an inch long; varying also in the proportionate lengths of scales, 
tubes and segments; but not near as much as in the Wissahickon spe- 
cimens. Professor Cope sends samples from Delaware County, Pa. 
These are varied like the Wissahickon ones; and Mr. Cope remarks to 
me that the pistillate forms are so distinctly characterized, by the vasi- 
form recurved corollas and other characters, that he can readily distin- 
guish them as he walks along. 
Has this peculiarity of Zpigea repens been overlooked by the many 
botanists who must have critically examined it heretofore? Or has 
the plant reached a stage of development when germs of uew forms 
spring actively into life? 
In a paper on Lopezia, published in the last volume of the Proceed- 
ings, I showed that the sexual organs of that genus were admirably 
arranged to prevent the pollen of a flower falling on its own stigma. 
This behaviour of Zpigga adds another to the list of plants, now so 
