. viii. mrATiENS. 327 



stage in the production of cleistogamie flowers, for on 

 plants growing in a state ,of nature, many of the flowers 

 never expand and yet produce fine pods. Some of 

 the buds are so large that they seem on the point of 

 expansion ; others are much smaller, but none so small 

 as the true cleistogamic flowers of the foregoing 

 species. As I marked these buds with thread and 

 examined them daily, there could be no mistake about 

 their producing fruit without having expanded. 



Several other Leguminous genera produce cleisto- 

 gamic flowers, as may be seen in the previous list ; but 

 much does not appear to be known about them. Von 

 Mohl says that their petals are commonly rudimentary, 

 that only a few of their anthers are developed, their 

 filaments are not united into a tube and their pistils 

 are hook-shaped. In three of the genera, namely Vicia, 

 Amphicarpsea, and Voandzeia, the cleistogamic flowers 

 are produced on subterranean stems. The perfect 

 flowers of Voandzeia, which is a cultivated plant, are 

 said never to produce fruit ;* but we should remember 

 how often fertility is affected by cultivation. 



Impatiens fulva. Mr. A. W. Bennett has published 

 an excellent description, with figures, of this plant.f 

 He shows that the cleistogamic and perfect flowers 

 differ in structure at a very early period of growth, so 

 that the existence of the former cannot be due merely 

 to the arrested development of the latter, a conclusion 

 which indeed follows from most of the previous de- 

 scriptions. Mr. Bennett found on the banks of the Wey 

 that the plants which bore cleistogamic flowers alone 

 were to those bearing perfect flowers as 20 to 1 ; but 



* Correa do Mcllo ('Journal African plant, which Is sometimes 



Linn. Soo. Bot.' vol. xi. 1870, p. cultivated in Brazil. 

 254) particularly attended to the t ' Journal Linn. Soc. Bot.' vol 



fiowering and fruiting of this xiii. 1872, p. 147. 



