INTRODUCTION. 





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appear to be analogous to the palece that are found on the rcccptecl<a of many Cmpotit*. 

 In other species the flowers lie close together, unseparated by any intervening ^^ ^ 

 Five kinds of .flowers are found in the genus, viz. male, pseudo-hermap lirodite, neuter, 

 fertile female, and gall flowers. The structure of each of these is very ample. The male 

 flowers consist of a perianth of from three to five pieces, which, although son. times united, 

 are usually free. The perianth sometimes hardly covers the stamen or stamens; in other 

 cases it is large, inflated, and completely envelope* the stamen. In some vpeeies the 

 pieces of the perianth are thin and colourless, and not unfrequently hyaline; in oth r> 

 they are of a red or dark-brown colour and opaque. In quite half the Im -Malax m 



species there is only a single stamen; in very many there are only two; v hile in only 



a few are there so many as three. In shape the anthers are for the most pert ovate 

 elliptic, although some are very broad and almost rotund; they are alw i 2-oelle 

 and have sutural dehiscence. Some are sessile or nearly so, and in very few is the filament 

 long. The attachment of the anther to the tilament is innate in most species; in a few, 

 however, it is adnate. In species with two stamens tin; filaments an- oft< i united for the 

 whole or part of their length, leaving the anthers however free. 



Pseudo-hermaphrodite flowers occur in only a few species. Such flowera have a 

 perianth like the ordinary male flower, but along with the single tamen there is 

 present in them a pistil with completely formed style and ovary. I have, however, never 

 found one of these ovaries to contain a seed, but I have not unfrequently found one 

 containing a pupa. 



Neuter flowers are found only in the few species forming the section SyiKecia. They 

 are long-pedicillate and have a 3-leaved perianth, without any trace of either anther 



or 



) 



Fertile female flowers have a perianth not very different from that of the ma! 

 but consisting in many cases of more pieces, and being more often gam«»phvllou 

 In the case where the pieces of the perianth are free, the individual pieces are souietin 



rather easily detached, and are very apt to be confounded with the bracteoh s «>f the 



receptacles in species where the latter exist. The perianth is usually much smaller than 

 the mature achene, and covers the latter very incompletely or not at all. In some ca 



where the perianth is gamophyllous it forms a small cup, which surrounds only the 

 base of the ovary or its pedicel. It was in some such cases, where the perianth is 

 hyaline, that Miquel was led to believe that none existed; and hence his statement 

 about the perianth being absent in Covellia. The pistil may be sessile, but it is 

 very often pedicillate ; the ovary is more or less ovoid or obovoid, with a tendency 

 to be emarginate on the side at which the style is attached. It contains a single 

 pendulous ovule. The style is filiform, and is in most cases distinctly lateral or sub-terminal 

 it rarely springs from the apex of the ovary. In length the style usually greatly e f» d* 

 the ovary: it Is usually smooth, but in a few species it is hairy. The stigma, which 



