M. Duchartre on the Organogeny of the Malvacee. 247 
manner as they appear subsequently. The ovaries were from the 
first grouped and adherent together, nearly in the same manner 
as the flower subsequently exhibits them, their styles being di- 
stinct at the summit, coherent in the rest of their extent, which 
has been more slowly developed. As regards the peculiar results 
to be deduced from these observations relative to the symmetry 
of the flower of the Malvacee, we have noticed them above, and 
it would be useless to repeat them. 
Undoubtedly we have not been able ourselves to verify all these 
facts, for this would occupy almost as much time as that devoted 
by the author to the original investigations ; but we have verified 
a sufficient number to justify the truth of most of them. We 
regret that M. Duchartre has not carried out his extensive re- 
searches still further, so as to teach us by anatomical details the 
formation of the tissues in the organs, the external forms of which 
he describes, and informing us at what periods the developments 
he describes correspond to the changes gradually established in 
the tissues, which are at first entirely cellular. 
We think that these details would throw a new light upon the 
phenomena of duplication, which are still so obscure, and would 
enable us better to comprehend the mechanism of this substitu- 
tion of several fascicled organs fora single plane organ. The for- 
mation of cayities by an excavation in the centre of a cellular mass, 
which assimilates certain carpels closely to anthers, is a fact so 
much opposed to the generally admitted theories as to require 
new obseryations and more development, especially by connecting 
with it the history of the ovule, and ascertaining how it is formed 
in the cavities thus produced. 
We acknowledge that these are researches of extreme delicacy, 
since the point at which M. Duchartre has arrived presented in- 
contestable difficulties, and the dissection of such minute bodies 
is exceedingly tedious, and even sometimes appears impossible. 
But for some years we have seen that microscopic observation 
surmounts difficulties which had long been considered insur- 
mountable, and facts, the direct knowledge of which had been 
despaired of, have become familiar to all those who are occupied 
in this kind of researches : just as those parts of the earth which 
were long unknown, now, being frequented, have become easily 
accessible, and from them we set out for more remote unexplored 
parts. These reflections must not be looked upon as detracting 
from M. Duchartre’s investigations, but rather as an encourage- 
ment for pursuing them. We address them to him the less re- 
luctantly, because what he has already done proves what he is 
capable of doing. 
