180 Mr. J. Miers on the Calyceracer. 
xxvill. 709) in his diagnosis of Boopis (Nastanthus) Gayana and 
of Boopis (Nastanthus) compacta, wherein he describes the corolla 
as being “ breviter subcylindrica, membrana externa hyalina ab 
interiori viridi remota.” 
Another character of the Calyceracee, which serves to distin- 
guish this family from the Composite, is deserving of some no- 
tice. Throughout the latter order, the style is bifid at its apex, 
and each branch is furnished towards its extremity with a stig- 
matic surface, and frequently also with collecting hairs, that 
assist in the transmission of the pollinic influence. On the con- 
trary, in Calyceracee the style is undivided, clavate, and solid at 
the extremity, and, though here covered with a rugose surface, 
is quite deficient of any collecting hairs. Although the ovary 
in both cases is 1-locular, the inference may be drawn from the 
above circumstances, that the normal condition of the ovary in 
the one case is to be 2-ovular, and in the other l-ovular; and 
though we have no positive proof of this conclusion, many cir- 
cumstances tend to favour the opinion of the biovular tendency 
of the ovary in Composite. The placentary point of attachment 
of the solitary erect ovule is always upon one side of the base of 
the cell; and hence it may be assumed that, as there are two 
stigmata, another placentary point normally existed, which has 
been suppressed *: this idea is again confirmed by the fact that 
in many of the achenia of Composite two parallel grooves or 
longitudinal lines are seen upon the face opposite to the axis 
- of the capitulum, which probably indicate the line of junction 
of two carpels, united there by their margins, without any intro- 
flexure or tendency towards forming a dissepiment; and it is 
probable that branches of the corda pistillaris from each stig- 
matic lobe run along these sutural edges of the carpels, as in 
the Capparidacee for instance. From the same circumstance 
we may also infer that the normal condition of the ovary is not 
2-locular with an intervening dissepiment ; for in such case the 
suppressed cell and the axis would be represented by a single 
longitudinal line. This inference is of course only hypothetical, 
but the suggestion is worthy of being kept in view. 
In Calyceracee the flowers in the same capitulum are not all 
fertile ; for many of them are sterile and polliniferous, which are 
promiscuously mixed with the fertile or hermaphrodite ones. In 
Acicarpha, however, there is some exception to this rule ; for the 
superior or more central florets are all sterile, while the more 
external series are hermaphrodite and fertile. 
I have observed in Nastanthus, where the florets are promis- 
cuously intermixed, that the flowers first produced are not per- 
* A similar view has been advocated by Mr. B. Clarke (Ann, Nat. Hist. 
2 ser. xi. p. 456). 
