KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAK. BAND 55- N:0 5. 101 



uneven on the surface. Usually it is not quite 2 mm long (1,7 — 2). The width 

 varies between l,i mm and 1,5 mm, which considerably alters its appearance. Also 

 the inside line downwards varies a little in form, now very faintly, now more evid- 

 ently bent inward. The curvature of the lid is either more prominent or weaker, 

 according to the width of the fruit, but always smooth and circular, to which is to 

 be added that the fruit lacks the basal broadness, characteristic of a pusillus-irnit. 

 The rostrum is apical and directed straight upwards or a little backwards. This 

 description relates to dry material as concerning P. pusillus below. In fresh, spe- 

 cimens, of course, the measures are a trifle larger. Like the pusillus-huit (contrary 

 to Fries and others) the back is also here not keeled and false keels exist very sel- 

 dom, as the fleshy part of the fruit in this species is not so thick as in pusillus. 

 Consequently the outlines of the embryo and the line of demarcation of the lid 

 can be seen outwardly more often in this species than in P. pusillus. Frequently 

 enough the fruit also has a small pit at the sides. Evidently we have here another 

 fruit than in P. pusillus; but it is also evident that, owing to the smallness of the 

 fruit and the comparatively large capacity of variation, the two species can never- 

 theless be found with fruits, in shape puzzlingly like each other, which fact may not 

 at all be considered to prove that the two species pass into one another, just as 

 little as, for instance, pusillus and obtusifolius, or zosterifolius and acutifolius, or 

 others, may for the same reason be said to run into one another. 



The most evident differences, however, between the two species before spoken 

 of, lie in the stipular sheaths and in the shape and occurrence of the turios, fig. 39. 

 As each species produces its different fruits, thus it also develops characteristic or- 

 gans of propagation and hibernation. This species has most gracile and inconsider- 

 able buds, in general only 12 — 15 mm long. They consist of transformed small 

 branches with extremely short internodes that are a little thickened, in diameter of 

 about V^ or Va mm. Two small sheaths are situated at the base, the lowest of 

 which is a prophyllum. Above these generally one but sometimes two to three leaves 

 are to be found, spreading, short and with sharp points, further one or two still 

 more reduced and adpressed, lastly the inner leaves enclosed by ligules forming the 

 essential portion of the bud. The first buds always exist on the basal parts of the 

 stem and branches. But when a bud is produced, for instance in the axil of a scale- 

 leaf, and the season admits a further development of the branch, another bud is 

 formed in the axil of the next following leaf and so on, whereupon at last even the 

 very apex can semetimes be transformed. The development being ended, the whole 

 branch breaks at the node of the scale-leaf, leaving only the lowest bud on the 

 mother-plant, which disconnected from the branch seems to have produced the re- 

 maining bud in the leaf-axil. The dropped branch or bud-system corresponds nearly 

 to the transformed short branches of P. crispus although the transformation in the 

 latter is much more advanced. Of course, all buds break or sink at last to the 

 bottom with the withering stem. 



In P. pusillus the development is quite the contrary: the best developed 

 buds occurring in the branch-tops, from where the generation proceeds downward by 



