92 Dr. H. Karsten on the Sexual Life of 



leaflets of the calyx — a mode of expression not usual with bota- 

 nists in the description of plants, except where the calyx con- 

 sists of a whorl of free and non-united leaf-like organs or sepals. 



Further, the form of the stigma is described in an anomalous 

 way by Braun : the lobes are not " somewhat emarginate at 

 their extremity (lobis expansis integris subemarginatis)," but 

 each of them has several dentations along its upper edge, more 

 or less deep, and three or four marginal teeth, or more seldom 

 two such ; and the edge is very rarely entire. This therefore is 

 clear, that Braun selected an imperfectly developed bud, and 

 described its condition as the rule, instead of a fully-developed 

 flower, — a circumstance it is always necessary to have stated. 

 The correctness of this conclusion is manifest from Braun's de- 

 scription of the position of the stigmas; for he says they arch 

 over and are compressed against the capsule, whereas in the 

 developed, full-blown flower the stigmata are horizontal and 

 somewhat erect. 



At the base of the external whorl of sepals, and partly adherent 

 to the short axis of the flower, several glands are met with, 

 usually one on each side of every sepal, of tolerably large size, 

 hemispherical, and flattened at their apex. A fifth similar gland 

 is also frequently found at the base of the free border of the 

 third leaflet of the calyx. 



Braun, again, is incorrect in his ideas respecting the attach- 

 ment of the flowers, since he says, " Several female flowers 

 grouped together at the extremities of the pedicels constitute 

 strictly called few- flowered, apparently loose spikes. These are 

 provided with a terminal flower, which is formed at an earlier 

 period than the lateral blossoms, of which latter the upper slowly 

 succeed the lower in the order of inflorescence." 



The flowers, including the lateral ones, are, however, not ses- 

 sile, as Braun implies, but shortly stalked, as Smith indeed 

 rightly described them, and are situated in the axis of a bract ; 

 their pedicels are furnished with two bracts, similar to the leaflets 

 of the calyx, and usually support a gland on each side of their base. 



The presence of the bracts on the pedicels of the flowers, and 

 the earlier expansion of the terminal than of the lateral flowers, 

 afibrd unequivocal evidence that the mode of inflorescence we 

 have here cannot be strictly named " a few-flowered spike," but 

 is nothing else than a few-flowered "cyme" the lateral flowers of 

 which are so shortly stalked that the whole inflorescence acquires 

 a spike-like form, or constitutes a cyma spiciformis. 



The description of C. ilicifolia given by Braun is not, indeed, 

 sufficient to establish the identity between the species examined 

 by him and by myself : however, I am thoroughly convinced of 

 the fact of this being the case; for, as Braun himself states. 



