510 ^Mr. Smith on a Plant which produces perfect Seeds 



and the similarity of the offspring to the parent would alone lead me to con- 

 clude that it is not the result of cross-fecundation. The circumstances con- 

 nected with the situation of the plant in the garden, and the absence of allied 

 male plants, as also the peculiarity of the natural order to which it belongs, 

 which do not readily hybridize, led nie to believe that no foreign pollen had 

 fecundated the ovarium ; and on watching the progress of the stigma all 

 doubts were removed. The inflorescence is produced on the apex of small 

 lateral branches in spikes of generally from three to five or more flowers : in 

 its early stage, a reddish disc is seen seated within five or six small, subulate, 

 villose, erect sepals ; and on examination the disc is found to be a dilated, 

 three-lobed, sessile stigma, and the sepals to be placed around the base of the 

 ovarium. Each flower is seated on a thick, very short pedicel, studded with 

 from one to four or five round, prominent, papilliform, shining glands, from 

 which, in the young state, exudes a colourless viscid fluid. This fluid remains 

 for some time on the surface of the glands in the form of a globule, and the 

 terminal flower always has the greatest number of glands. The ovarium is 

 three-celled, each cell containing one ovulum, attached to the apex of the 

 inner angle of the cell ; and in the course of four or five months the seeds are 

 perfected and discharged with elastic force from the capsule ; the whole pre- 

 senting the usual structure of Euphorbiacece, such as it occurs in Croton, 

 Phyllanthus, Cluytia, &c. I have already said, that the stigma consists of 

 three connate lobes, which are more or less notched ; at first the lobes are 

 depressed on the ovarium, but as the ovarium swells they lose their reddish 

 colour and become inclined upwards, retaining their succulent and healthy 

 appearance till dried up by the ripening of the fruit : the surface has a granular 

 appearance, derived from minute papillae, and showing no signs of having been 

 acted upon by pollen. Spiral vessels occur in the thick part of the base of the 

 stigma, and are doubtless connected with the vascular tissue of the ovaiium. 

 I have seen nothing like pollen-tubes. The stigmatic surface remaining so 

 long unchanged affords a strong proof of its not having been acted upon by 

 pollen, it being well known that the stigma of many plants remains for a long 

 time unaltered, but soon after the application of pollen a change takes place, 

 as is readily seen in Orchidece. 



On considering the circumstances above noticed, and in particular the 



