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Notes on Structural Botany. By William Wilson, Esq. 



Anatropous Ovule; what is it? — If any of the readers of the 

 ' Phytologist' have had the same difficulty in understanding this terra 

 that I have experienced, they will not regard the following remarks 

 as superfluous. My reasons for supposing them of importance, and 

 my excuse for certain crude observations which appear in my " Re- 

 searches in Embryogeny" ( Phytol. i. 734 ), will appear in the follow- 

 ing quotations from a work which furnishes but few occasions for criti- 

 cism, and is therefore the more likely to inspire implicit confidence 

 in the accuracy and perspicuity of all its statements. I allude to Pro- 

 fessor Lindley's ' Introduction to Botany.' 



In reference to the anatropous class of ovules, he states that the 

 " axis remains rectilinear ; but one of the sides grows rapidly, while 

 the opposite side does not grow at all, so that the [forameniferous] 

 point of the ovule is gradually pushed round to the base; while the base 

 of the nucleus is removed from the hilum [point of attachment of the 

 ovule to the funiculus or placenta] to the opposite extremity. — When 

 the base of the nucleus is thus removed from the base of the ovule, a 

 communication between the two is always maintained by means of a 

 vascular cord called the raphe. This raphe, which originates in the 

 placenta, runs up one side of the ovule until it reaches the base of the 

 nucleus ; and there expands into a sort of vascular disk, which is call- 

 ed the chalaza.''—{ Ed. 2, p, 180 ). 



I would first remark on the vagueness of this definition in reference 

 to the time when the assumed change of position of the nucleus com- 

 mences, and especially to the time of its completion. An explanation 

 on this point is indeed given with PI. 5, but was overlooked by me 

 until very recently. 



Secondly, the definition implies that it is only the nucleus which 

 makes culhutes, and that the two integuments remain, as to their bascy 

 quite stationary, the inevitable inference being that the raphe or vas- 

 cular cord of connexion is within the secundine and primine. This 

 to me has been a grievous stumbling-block, and I have repeatedly 

 sought for such a proof of locomotion on the part of the nucule, but 

 always in vain. Foiled in my endeavours to detect an internal raphe, 

 I began to doubt the propriety of the term anatropous. 



Mr. Bentham (whose merit and profound science as a botanist 

 need no acknowledgment from me ) appears to have had some difli- 

 culty in adjusting his correct idea of this modification of an ovule to 

 the conventional term used to express it. He says of the Leguminosce 



