CR.YPTOGAMOUS PLANTS. 253 



globules ; but Hedvvig answers, that this may take place, 

 or at least that the fovilla may come out, by imper- 

 ceptible pores ; 2d, that the flowering taking place in 

 water, it is not known how the fovilla reaches the female 

 organ: but Vaucher explains this anomaly by the nature 

 of this fovilla, which is resinous and does not mix with 

 water. 



Others have thought : —some, that this apparatus or 

 red disc was a kind of swimming bladder ; others, that 

 it was an apparatus containing a peculiar kind of seeds ; 

 but its fugacity, its appearance at the moment when the 

 other is developed, have caused almost all naturalists to 

 regard it as a true anther, in which it remains to be dis- 

 covered in what manner the fovilla can escape. 



The female apparatus is composed — 1st, of three or 

 four very short branches which surround it at the base, 

 forming for it a kind of involucrum ; 2d, of an oval 

 body, marked with five or six lines disposed in regular 

 spires, enclosing a green opaque body surmounted with 

 five or six lobes, each of which is situated at the top of 

 one of the lines. Vaucher considers these as stigmata. 

 Hedwig considers them as prolongations of an adherent 

 calyx, and says that he has remarked near their centre 

 a projecting point, which he considers as the true stigma. 

 This last opinion appears more likely, because it accords 

 on the one hand with the position of the lines, and on 

 the other with the solitariness of the central body. 



This body is filled with a multitude of little globules 

 of different sizes, which Hedwig and Martius consider 

 as spores or seeds, but which Vaucher denies to be so, 

 without affirming anything upon their real nature. 



This observer has shown me. that when the whole ap- 

 paratus above described is placed in water, it opens at 

 the top into five teeth, and there comes out of it a 

 cylindrical filament, which is the stem of a new individual, 



