316 Miscellaneous. 



to this third series of flowers, the first two having purely pistillate 

 blossoms. In these there do not seem to be the rudiments of 

 stamens. 



The most remarkable part of this process of development is that 

 the whole of this first series of female flowers should open so long- 

 before the male ones come that they fall unfertilized. Most part of 

 the second series also fall, and the crop of seeds is maitdy made up 

 of a few of the last opening ones of the section, and the compara- 

 tively few hermaphrodite ones which are found in those of the third 

 class. It is a matter for curious speculation what special benefit it 

 can be to the plant to spend so miich force on the production of 

 female flowers too early to mature, and then producing such an 

 immense mass of pollen to go utterly to waste. 



It may not be amiss to note that in the common carrot the earher 

 strong umbels have often a male flower in the centre, and that, 

 while the usual flowers are of a pure white, this one is of a crimson 

 colour. In the central umbels of Aralia spinosa, and at times on 

 spurs along the branchlets of the panicle, are similar-coloured pro- 

 cesses, so small that their form cannot be made out by a common 

 pocket lens. Our fellow member, Dr. J. Gibbons Hunt, makes them 

 out, under the dissecting-microscope, to be vase-like forms with five 

 minute reflexed segments, and with a small solid disk in the centre. 

 It is interesting as evidently being a successful attempt of an 

 abortive flower to simulate in some respects a real one of another 

 character. 



Examining also the flowers of the allied European evergreen 

 ivy {Hedera helix, L.), I find similar laws of distribution of the 

 sexes as in Aralia spinosa, with the addition of a somewhat different 

 structure in the male from the female flowers. 



In Europe the plant is described as often having a single umbel as 

 a flower-spike. It is quite likely in these cases the flowers are her- 

 maphrodite. In all the cases I have met with here, the inflorescence 

 is a compound of several umbels — a terminal one female, and the 

 lateral ones male, as in Aralia. But there are rudiments of stamens 

 in the flower; and in occasional instances I find a filament developed, 

 but never, so far, with any poUiniferous anthers. The flowers of the 

 central female umbel have rather longer and stronger pedicels than 

 the lateral male ones. The calyx is united with the ovarium for one 

 half its length, and the latter much developed in the unopened 

 flower. In the male the segments of the calyx are two-thirds free, 

 and the petals are much longer than in the female flowers. 



As in Aralia sp>inosa, the male flowers do not open until some 

 time after the female ones, and not before some of the latter, impa- 

 tient of delay, have fallen uufertihzcd. 



I have so often and in so many \'aried ways demonstrated to the 

 Academy that in plants the male element is a later and inferior 

 creation, that it seems almost supererogatory to point out that these 

 plants illustrate the same principle ; but it is part of the record of 

 what I believe to be unobserved facts in relation to these species ; 

 therefore I briefly allude to them. — Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc. Fhilad. 

 Sept. 27, 1870. 



