i 
228 MR. JOHN MIERS ON THE LOASACE. 
placentæ, which project far into the middle of the cell, thus rendering it almost 3-locular: 
the structure of the seed of Caiophora will be presently shown to be very different. 
Blumenbachia also differs from it in many of its floral characters, but more especially 
in the very dissimilar shape and structure of its spiral capsule, its peculiar mode ot 
placentation, and the development of its seeds. 
The structure of the seed in Gripidea presents features that command attention. This, 
at first sight, seems as if it had a long transparent wing at each extremity; but when 
examined under a lens, these wings are seen to form part of a curved long cylindrical 
sac, pointed at both ends, with two constrictions near the middle, being five times the 
length and twice the breadth of a dark opake body which appears to float in its centre; 
this integumental sac is formed of stout cancellated bars, with large elongated and some- 
what hexagonoidal spaces, formed of a thin pellicular colourless membrane, marked with 
small pellucid spots; there is no apparent aperture in any part of the integument, no 
hilar scar by which it may have been attached to the inner flotant body or to the 
placenta, nor the smallest trace of a duct or tracheal vessel of any kind that could form 
the channel of nutritory communication between the placenta and the enclosed nucleus. 
The seed bears much resemblance to that of Dictyostega, belonging to Durmanmiacen, 
figured in the Linnean * Transactions,’ vol. xviii. pl. 37. The inner body, when removed, 
is found to be quite free from the integument just described ; it is oval, black, opake, with 
a sculptured surface, formed of hexagonoidal hollows, and is terminated at its upper end 
by a funnel-shaped membrane, open at its apparently laciniated mouth, and formed of 
slender cancellated bars, with transparent spaces so finely attenuated as to vanish 
gradually into an almost insensible pellicle, which perhaps extends to the extremity, 
remaining adherent to the outer coating; but if so, it cannot be traced on account ot ih 
extreme tenuity :'at its lower extremity this integument is more pointed, and vanishes 
in a similar manner; but we cannot perceive the smallest vestige of any raphe or chil 
either in the transparent extremities or in the thick opake middle portion of this inte- 
Sument; when this second coating is removed, we find a third, membranaceous thin, 
translucent, reticulated coating, which closely invests the oval-shaped albumen, a! 
which is entirely devoid of vessels; the embryo, which is nearly the length of the albu- 
men, 1s quite straight, terete, with its radicle pointing upwards, the latter being some 
what longer than the two semi-cylindrical cotyledons, which are equal to it in diameter: 
+ Dee c the examination of ovules in their early stage of growth, e sv 
bs ihm d of their membranes, some light would be thrown on por e 
din. ippointed : the integuments of an ovule half advanced to ma 
F in shape to those of the ripe seed, the outer coating is even more lax, oti 
ban rms be moved within it with even more facility, appearing to pr roth 
Fes a. now more transparent, is expanded in a similar ma sels con 
detects’ ee is Ts powerful microscope no trace of any nourishing eene m 
Time Y Scar at either extremity to denote the presence of either 
^ "ams an ovary at the period of the maturity of the flower, its e Ar 
ère seen divaricately suspended from, and densely imbricate 
