69 
appearance as the tissue of the vine root; the vessels of this 
enter the cupula at the point of connection, running upwards 
first but soon bending and aiming in a horizontal direction 
towards the margin of the cupula. 
In a female flower I measured the diameter of the cupula 
to be 9 ctm.; whereas in a male flower it was found to be 
11,5 eM. across. 
Upon the cupula is resting the columna, a pudding shaped 
formation, carrying upon its top a large discus, suggestive of a 
royal crown. The column is at its base a little broader than 
the cupula, but this dimension decreases upwards, till it is only 
a little more than half as broad as beneath, but then again it 
increases, forming mushroom fashion a large discus, the broadest 
part of the whole formation. The column carries round its side 
a sharply marked ring, which divides its surface into an upper 
and a lower part, very different from each other, both in regard 
to morphology and function. 
The inferior portion is of a darker colour as compared with the 
superior one, True the real ground colour of both parts as of the 
column and the disc taken as a whole is the same, namely a 
light brick red, but the lower part and the ring limiting it 
above are densely covered with very short, rather thick, stiff, 
dark brown hairlets, which give the region-a much darker aspect. 
The lower part of the column is to a very considerable ex- 
tent occupied by another ring, much broader than the superior 
one but less sharply pronounced. This ring is much thicker and 
more projecting during the bud stage than in the open flower, 
where its inner slope is short and relatively sheer, whereas the 
exterior one is broad and very slowly rising. In a female flower 
I found this inferior columnar ring to be 2 cM. broad. It is 
full of wrinkles running in a radial direction and carries a lot 
of small, round elevations. Along the outer margin of the ring 
is running a sharply drawn line, which we can call the terminal 
line of the column. As a matter of fact when we are looking 
into the flower from above, this line very well establishes a 
morphological boundary between the column and the perigoneal 
tube with its ramenta. True, a vertical section through the 
