XXXVIII. OBSERVATIONS ON THE EMBRYOGENY 

 OF NELUMBO. 



H. L. LYON. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The peculiar and seemingly inconsistent characters of JVe- 

 himbo have given rise to a variety of opinions regarding its 

 proper systematic position and in attempts to settle the points in 

 dispute the plant has again and again been subjected to careful 

 investigation, the recorded observations forming a considerable 

 literature. 



In anatomy the plant seems to conform more nearly to the 

 type of the Monocotyledons, as in fact do all the Nymphaeaceae, 

 the vascular bundles being closed and irregularly placed through 

 the stem. On the other hand the large peltate leaves with their 

 reticulate venation are perhaps more suggestive of a dicoty- 

 ledonous plant, while the flowers might easily belong to one of 

 either class. Thus far can investigators agree, but the anoma- 

 lous character of the fruit has made it a subject for controversy, 

 and the interpretations offered are numerous and at great vari- 

 ance. Briefly stated the fruit presents the following peculiari- 

 ties. Each carpel of the apocarpous gynoecium contains a 

 single ovule and matures as a spherical one-seeded fruit. The 

 thick sclerenchymatous pericarp lined by the thin testa is closely 

 filled by two large white fleshy bodies hemispherical in shape 

 and joined to each other at the stigmatic end of the pericarp. 

 In an elongated oval chamber formed by opposed concavities 

 in the inner surfaces of these fleshy bodies, and attached to 

 them at their point of continuity is a green structure a stem 

 bearing a large and small leaf and an apical bud containing 

 two more. The free leaves are fully formed and already green 

 and together with the stem are enclosed by a thin delicate 

 structureless membrane. Imbedded in the common tissue of 

 the two fleshy bodies opposite the insertion of the stem of the 



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