10 Coccus affecting the Orange. 



old view as stated by Dr. Lindley, and that the presence of 

 the fibre-cells bears me out in it. Added to this, we have 

 usually a six or seven-lobed involucre, which would represent 

 the bracts due to each flower, taking the central one as a 

 perfect pattern. I have examined the flowers of another 

 species of Reseda, the R. fruticaulis ; I find the glandular 

 bodies supporting the petals are not nearly so large as in the 

 common Mignionette, but each fringe has a small number of 

 fibro-cells developed in it. That these fleshy glandular parts 

 have been noticed and compared with the central one of the 

 flower is well known, but no explanation has ever been 

 offered save by Dr. L; and now by myself. He again says, 

 when speaking of the part termed disk, " It is an opinion, 

 which daily gains ground, that the disk is really only a 

 rudimentary state of the stamens, and it is thought that the 

 proofs of the correctness of this hypothesis are to be found 

 in' the frequent separation of the cup-like disk into bodies 

 alternating with true stamens, as in Gesneria, and in 

 Parnassia, in the resemblance to bundles of polyadelphous 

 stamens." 



I trust, therefore, the view I have revived and attempted 

 to illustrate, will not be deemed untenable ; as also in a paper 

 I lately brought forward, I instanced the Plantain of Europe 

 developing its ovules into leaves, and in some specimens into 

 true flowers, each case serving to show us that any part of 

 a flower may be developed into a different kind of organ 

 than that predicated by its position in the particular flower. 



Art. VI. — On the Coccus affecting the Orange. By Thomas 

 S. Ralph, Esq., M.R.C.S,. and Assoc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 

 [Read 19th August, 1861.] 



The chief object I had in view in bringing before the 

 Society some observations on the insect which attacks the 

 fruit of the Orange, was to direct the attention of micro- 

 scopists and others to the study of one of those forms of 

 insect life, which present many favourable opportunities for 

 a series of observations bearing on the structure of the 

 Coccus family generally ; and perhaps these observations 

 might be attended with advantage to others, by directing 

 their attention against the probable results which may follow 

 from the attacks of this insect upon the Orange, as an article 



