430 Mr. J. Miers on Ephedra. 
ovarium leading from the stigmata to the base of the cell in 
Chenopodium; he saw distinctly, however, pollinic boyaux at- 
tached to the micropyle of its ovule, which could have had no 
other means of ingress into the cell except directly from the 
base of the very short style. As before mentioned, we find a 
similar mode of direct communication between the stigma and 
the ovules in Olacacee and Styracee, where the latter are sus- 
pended from a free central placenta, or rather ovuligerous co- 
lumn, the apex of which frequently enters into the broad hollow 
space in the base of the style; by this means the ovules appear 
to receive the pollinic influence immediately through the open 
channel of the style. A similar perforation in the apex of the 
cell of the ovary into the hollow style is seen in all the Thyme- 
leacee; and this is manifested in Cansjera, where the ovules are 
fixed on parietal carinal projections, leaving open channels which 
extend nearly to the summit of the style. Griffiths gives other 
similar instances in Santalum, Osyris, and Loranthus, where he 
traced* the pollen-tubes from the stigmata, in a direct course 
through the style into the cell of the ovary, and in contact with 
the apex of the embryo-sac in the nucleus of the ovule. It was 
moreover shown long ago by Endlicher+, and since confirmed by 
Dr. Weddel, in nis admirable monograph of the Urticacee, that 
in that family the micropyle of its basal atropal ovule attams the 
summit of its l-locular cell, where it meets with the stigmatic 
tissue protruding from an opening in the base of the style, and 
where it becomes firmly attached, as already related of Statice. 
These are cases perfectly analogous to what occurs in the Gne- 
tacee, and yet no one has ventured to designate the germs so 
immediately impregnated in those instances as naked or gymno-. 
spermous ovules. So likewise in Piperacee, Schnitzlem has 
demonstrated { that the ovary of Peperomia has an open channel 
in its apex contiguous to its sessile stigma, and that the micro- 
pyle of its erect atropous ovule is found in immediate proximity 
to that foramen, exactly as in Ephedra and Gnetum. In Myrica, 
also, a similar structure exists. 
In a paper shortly to be published on South-American Ana- 
cardiacee, it will be shown that in every genus I have examined 
there is always a pervious aperture in the putamen, whether it 
be corneous, as in Rhus, or thin and fragile, as in Comocladia,— 
whence, from the position of the ovules and the absolute want 
of any placentary communication between the style and the 
ovule, we must infer either that the means of fertilization of the 
latter could only have been conveyed through the spiral vessels 
of the umbilical cord, according to the long-exploded notions of 
* Linn. Trans. xix. 173. + Gen. Plant. p. 283. 
{ Iconographia, pl. 81. fig. 17. 
