: double anther, and a 
proper; the former having a single anther, and a style at liberty, and the latter a 
a distinction which subsequent obser 
ed friend Mr. Robt. Brown, in his Prodromus Flore 
vations have confirmed, 
style supported between the lobes of the anther ; 
and which has also since been made by my learn 
Nove Hollandie, published in 1810; a circumstance which in ju 
to notice, as this distinction has been considered by many writers of the 
that if such is the fact, I was at the time 
stice to myself I have been here compelled 
present day, as originating with 
Mr. Brown, and followed by me; to which I can only add, 
. ; it; ise I should ha 
when my dissertation was published, and am still, perfectly unconscious of it; otherwise ve 
had great pleasure in attributing this discovery to its proper source. 
The processes or pointed germinal appendages (Corpuscula) referred to in the plants of the true 
Scitaminean tribe, and which are found in all the genera, except Costus, which in consequence of this 
defect is supplied with another apparatus, probably for the same purpose, at the summit of the style, have 
given rise to various opinions as to their purposes and use. Kcnig, who seems to have been the first 
that observed them, considered them as Nectaries, but this opinion is erroneous, as the nectary of the 
plants bearing these processes is generally placed in the faux of the corolla. Other authors, and in particular 
Mr. Brown, have considered these processes as sterile stamina, but we can scarcely admit that a peculiarity 
which is found to extend through so large a tribe of plants should be an imperfection, nor can there - be 
a doubt that they are perfect in their nature, and perform some important office in the economy of the 
plant, being deeply inserted in the germen and accompanying the style to the ovarium; so that they might 
rather be considered as imperfect styles, than as imperfect stamina. It is however, highly probable, that 
the function of these appendages is to facilitate the circulation of the impregnating fluid, conveyed through 
the fine capillary tube of the style to the interior of the germen, and that they contract or expand 
according to the degree of heat and moisture, or other circumstances; but on this subject further observation 
would be necessary before we positively decide. In a few instances, the place of these appendages, which 
are generally subulate, or in the form of hornlets, erect or diverging, acute or obtuse, is supplied by flat 
auriculated glands; as in some species of Alpinia, which may be taken as an additional proof that these 
parts are of some indispensable use in the economy of Scitaminean Plants. 
Mr. Brown, after noticing in his above-mentioned work my arrangement of Monandrian Plants in the 
eighth volume of the Linnean Transactions, has himself favoured us with some remarks on that subject, in 
which he has suggested other characteristics for separating the genera of Scitaminee than those to which I 
had referred. In particular, he conceives the inflorescence, or mode of flowering, to be, in many instances, a 
good generic distinction, such as indeed may alone be considered as constituting a difference of genus, as 
sufficiently appears from what he observes of the Cardamom plant, the Amomum Repens of Sonnerat, where he 
says, “This plant appears, from Sonnerat’s own specimens in the Banksian Herbarium, to be distinguished from 
Ipini ly by its inflor for whi rae 8 : 
Alpinia only by its inflorescence, for which cause, however, it was formerly separated, and not without reason, 
(nec immerito) by Adanson.” On this I have only to observe, that although I was at one time disposed to 
regard the inflorescence as a good generic distinction; yet after the experience of many years, and particularly 
. i 
since I undertook the present work, I have been led to consider it as marking only a specific difference ; 
’ 
instances having of late years occurred, both in Zingiber and Costus, and even in Alpinia, from which it appears 
that the individuals of these genera produce their flowers both terminally, from the extremity of the leaf-bearing 
stem, and radically or immediately from the root upon a proper scape, in addition to which I have seen in 
Costus, the same individual plant produce its flowers both terminally and radically, 
sufficiently shows that the inflorescence is not to be relied on for generic distinctions, which are only to be found 
e-mentioned remarks of Mr. 
into English by Mr. Lindley, the present Editor of the Bot. Reg. 
a circumstance which 
in the immediate organs of fructification. The aboy B h 
rown have been translated 
and inserted in the 144th number of 
