THE PRINCIPLE OF NUMBER. 



21 



In some cases, nature seems, as it were, to try and com- 

 pensate for the loss of the carpels by an increase in the 

 quantity of seeds. Thus, while no Labiate flower has more 

 than four seeds, it has been ascertained that a Maxillaria 

 bore 1,700,000 seeds ; and I found by calculation that a single 

 plant of Foxglove yielded a million and a half apparently 

 good seeds. 



The relative advantages of having many or few seeds 

 will be discussed later on. 



Illustrations from RANUNCULACEiE. — Certain genera of 

 the Eanunciolacece are particularly instructive in showing 

 how members of the floral whorls originate in phyllotactical 

 methods, but are more or less 

 altered in their positions by the 

 lateral union of their fibre- vascular 

 cords ; so that they become ar- 

 ranged in superposition instead 

 of being alternate, or vice versa. 

 Thus, in Garidella (Fig. 4) (with 

 which. Helleborus foetidus partly 

 agrees), the sepals and petals are 

 both arranged, and arise succes- 

 sively, in quincuncial order; the 

 petals being (correctly, in accord- 

 ance with phyllotaxis) superposed to the sepals. The an- 

 droecium forms a whorl of eight stamens, and represents 

 a cycle of the f arrangement ; the proper angular divergence 

 of 135° is, however, not retained, in consequence of the fibro- 

 vascular cords being intimately connected with those of the 

 petals. Having thus established the first whorl of eight, the 

 rest of the staminal series follow on the same radial lines. 

 By referring to the diagram (Fig. 4) it will be seen how the 

 stamens of the outermost whorl group themselves in super- 



0-' 



/ 

 / 



I 



€3 



\ 

 \ 

 \ 



e3 



Fig. 4.— Diagram of Garidella. 



