of the Aquilegia vulgaris. 7 



is the perfect stamen. No further evidence," says our anthor, 

 '• can, I think, be required of the formation of stamens out of 

 petals." 



We see that Lindley had here followed the impulse given 

 by Goethe, and that he looked upon the cucullitbrm petals 

 (Richard) as proceeding towards the formation of the stamina 

 by an ascending metamorphosis. At present the spur is no 

 longer in his view anything but a modified petal*. A dis- 

 covery which we cannot dispute with him, since the germ of it 

 appears in his Mords, is that the horn of the Columbine is 

 really a lengthened connective, — a thing which we shall also 

 establish by direct proofs hereafter. 



Although G. W. Bischoff, Professor of Botany at Heidel- 

 berg, does not give this morphological genesis of the spur in 

 the Aquilegia, still this author helps to lead us to believe that 

 this is really the means which nature employs, in what he 

 has remarked respecting the metamorphosis of the nectar - 

 bearing horns of the HeUeborus fmtidus into normal stamensf. 

 Link sees nothing in the spur but a continuation of the 

 petal, characterized by the presence, at the end of its cavity, 

 of a cellular gland, but of which the cellules have walls 

 thicker than ordinary, — a thing which we take the liberty 

 of not admitting^. After M. Vogel of Bonn had sent me 

 his elegant memoir on the development of the parts of the 

 flower in the Leguminosae§, the study of the formation of 

 calcariform or cucullitbrm nectaries, according to the glosso- 

 logy of Richard II, became still more interesting. Indeed, 

 Sch.leiden and Vogel having proved, by their labours, that it is 

 not merely in idea, as a mental abstraction, that we are to 

 see in the floral organs nothing but the axis of the plant and 

 its leaves, but that this axis and its green leaves are really 

 and substantially found, placed regularly in the very small 

 buds, we thought that the investigation of the genesis of the 

 nectaries in the Columbine could not be without scientific 

 interest. DeCandolle came to consider these horn-shaped 

 nectaries as anthers, by comparison ; Lindley came to the 

 same conclusion by the observation of teratological cases ; it 

 was become therefore curious to test these views a priori 

 and a posteriori by organogenic proofs : and this is M'hat we 

 have proposed to ourselves. 



* Lindley. Introduction to Botany (1839), p. 1G9. 



t Gottlob Wilhelm Bischoff. Lehrbuch der Botanik, vol. i. p. 404. (183.3.) 

 J Link. Elementa Philosophise Botanicse, vol. ii. p. 130. 

 § Schleiden und Vogel. Beitrage zui* Entwickelungsgeschichte der Blu- 

 mentheile bei den Leguminosen. (Act. Nat. Curios, vol. xix. p. 1.) 

 II Richard. Nouv. Elemens de Botanique, 1838, p. 333. 



