RAFFLESIA Al^XOLDT, ETC. \1^ 



I have also to statc^ that an extensive and liip:lily import- ^n 

 ant essay, entitled, ''An Attempt to analyse RhlrMufhccey by 

 Mr. William Griffith, has been read during the present 

 season before the Linnean Society, of which an abstract is 

 given in the Proceedings. "From this essay I have here in- 

 troduced the character of Baprla, a new genus belonging 

 to Baf/lesiacece ; and have ventured to propose an alteration 

 of the trivial name from Him a! a jj ana to Gri///fhii, in 

 honour of the discoverer of this interesting addition to the 

 tribe Ttafflesiece, whose species, with one exception, liave 

 names similarlv derived. 



RArFLESIACEiE. 



Char. Diff. Ord. PpriantJiwm monophyllum regulare. 



Corolla nulla. 



Stamina : Antherae numerosse, simplici serie. 



Ovarium: placentis pluribus polyspermis, ovuHs ortho- 

 tropis (sed in quibusdam reciirvatione apicis, penitus vel 

 partim, liberi funiculi quasi anatropis). 



P erica rjnum indehiscens polyspermum. 



Emhrjio indivisus (cum v. absque albumine). 



Parasiticae racUcibus rariusve i/i ramis i)lantarum dicotj/Ie* 

 done arum. 



stages of development, and which lie extends to Pho2nof]ramous plants generally, 

 in 'some respects different from that laken by ]\L ^Mirbehwhp considers the 

 nuclt-us of llie ovuliim, in its earliest state, as inclosed in its coats, which 

 gradually open until they have attained their maximum of expansion, wlicu 

 they again contract around the nucleus, and, at the same time, by elongating, 

 completely inclose it. ]\[r. Brown, on the other hand, regards the earliest stage 

 of the nucleus as merely a contraction taking place in the apex of a pre-existing 

 papilla, whose surface, as well as substance, is originally uniform, and that its 

 coats are of subsequent formation, each coat consisting, at first, merely of an 

 annular thickening at the base of the nucleus, which, by gradual elongation, it 

 entirely covers before impregnation takes place. 



" But this mode of development of the ovulum, he remarks, though very 

 f'cneral, is not without exception; for in many, perhaps in all, Asclepiadea 

 and Jpocinecp, the ovulum continues a uniform cellular tissue, cxhibitmg no 

 distinction of parts until after the application of the pollen tube to a delinite 

 part of its surface, when an internal separation or included nucleus lijst 

 becomes visible."— See a translation of this abstract in Aiuial. des Sc. Xat 

 ser. 2(ie, torn, i, p. 3G9. 



