I 



36 botanical gazette. [ February, 



The two-celled ovary is composed of two carpellary 

 leaves, with two cushion-like basal placentae, each bearing 

 two ovules, though at maturity there is often but one. The 

 sections of placentae are deceptive when the ovules are ab- 

 sent, having much the appearance of young ovules. The 

 study of the ovules* with reference to the layers in the seed 

 coat gives evidence that in the mature testa there are three. 

 The outer is quite unlike the two below, which are, perhaps, 

 divisions of the same cell layer. They probably arise and 

 cover the nucellus in an early stage, but are not differentiated 



into the mature form until a late period in the maturity of the 



ovule. 



A short distance below the apex of each mature embryo, 

 and always on the inside of the curve, as it lies coiled in the 

 seed, is a well-developed scale (rigs. 8 and 9, a). Another 

 scale almost as well developed is usually to be found slightly 

 below the apex of the embryo, but on the outer side of the 

 curve (tigs. 8 and 9, b). These two are separated by quite 

 a portion of the stem in length, and in some cases the second 

 scale is only partially differentiated, and yet a part of the 

 tip, whose tissues, under a high power, are evidently of scales 

 in process of formation. In no case were the scales oppo- 

 site, or approximating it, as a pair of cotyledons would 

 stand. What may be their relation to the embrvo, I do not 

 know, but the apex with its forming scales, of which this 

 second one is sometimes a part, could well be a plumule. 

 Comparing seedlings two inches in height with the embryos, 

 the scales were evident (at least always the inner one), and 

 at a distance from the growing tip corresponding to the in- 

 creased length of the plant. They in every case soon turned 

 brown. 



How the dodder became a parasite is an interesting 

 theme, and pleasantly treated in an article in the Popular 

 Science Monthly. VoL XXV. A weak stem, desire to reach 

 the light, twining to accomplish this, and tasting juices by 

 chance, they were nourished by them and given a'tendenc\ 

 which increased in favorably situated descendants until, as 

 Drummond states: "Henceforth to the botanist the adult 

 dodder presents the degraded spectacle of a plant without a 

 root, without a twig, without a leaf, and having a stem so 

 useless as to be inadequate to bear its own weight." So it 

 stands a monument of degeneration. Other plants with 

 smaller beginnings have gone on to higher forms, while the 

 dodder, as Prof. Drummond again, in substance, says, from 



