1897] THE LIFE HISTORY OF SALIX 167 
and two microsporangia. In fig. 85 the two pistils are united 
for half their length, one having two feebly developed micro- 
sporangia and one normal ovule, and the other the lower ovule 
pertectly orthotropous and with a perfect integument all around, 
its embryo sac being normal. This ovule is borne upon a long, 
smooth, slender stalk, which springs from the usual placental 
outgrowth. These long stalks were observed several times, and 
they always bore orthotropous ovules. It will be remembered 
that the anatropous or orthotropous character of ovules is used 
as a taxonomic character, the normal ovules of Sa/ix being 
anatropous. The other ovule is anatropous, and presents noth- 
ing exceptional except that the placental outgrowth is elongated. 
Another orthotropous ovule is shown in fig. 87, one of the two 
microsporangia having a long stalk. In jig. 86 one might fairly 
claim an ambisporangiate flower. The pistil contains two normal 
ovules, and one ovule curiously formed in the wall of the carpel, 
while the upper part of the ovary is occupied by two large micro- 
sporangia, one of which is not represented. The staminate flower, 
if such it may be called, has two microsporangia lying side by 
side, one of which is not represented. The stalk has the struc- 
ture of a carpel wall rather than that of a filament. In figs. So, 87 
we have utterly irregular conditions. The ovules are not at all 
enclosed in the ovary, three of them being borne transversely 
and one of them orthotropous. Two of the embryo sacs were 
normally developed and look as if they might produce embrvos. 
This would afford an instance of fertilization in angiosperms 
without the intervention of a stigma. The pollen could fali 
directly upon the ovule and a very short pollen tube would suffice. 
Such open carpels are not rare in this plant and it is ginsongses 
that a careful search would yield cases of fertilization and embryo 
formation. A curious case is shown in fig. 84, where a common 
stalk branches into two filaments, each bearing an anther. Each 
anther has four microsporangia, two longer and larger on the 
inner side, and two spherical ones on the other side of the con- 
Nective. In the anther on the right, the connective is gee 
into a well developed stigma. 
