91 
Original Articles. 
ON ANACHARIS. 
Bx C. C. Basineton, M.A., F.R.S. 
SR ere is Sued ce being a concurrence of opinion — io don 
e pla nt called Anacharis Alsinastru In our last- 
Satale: Flora (Heck, Stud. Fl. p. 350) name of psi eter is de 
as was done by Bab. and Planch. (Aun. Nat. Hist. ser. 2, vol. i. p. 83, 
and Ann. Se. Nat. ser. 3, t. xi. p. 74); but i in " next preceding British 
Flora (Benth. Handb. ed. 1, 499; ed. 2, 447) the generic name ea 
is adopted. Syme (Eng. Bot. ix. 80) follows Be ntham, but in a note ex- 
presses the opinion that Hydrilla is the proper name. Asa Gray named 
the North American plaut Udora in the first edition of his * Botany of the 
»—— -— A 462), but in ed. 5 (p. 495) he has adopted Anacharis 
the proper 
7 Richard defined | genera with each of the names Elodea, Anacharis, and 
Hydrilla in 1812 (Mem. Inst. 1811, pt. 2, p. 1), a and had previously 
described the genus Kodea in 1803 (Mich. Fl. Bor.-Amer. i. 20). In 
pressly that lodea has hermaphrodite flowers. In the Mem. Inst. he 
says that 4nacharis and Hydrilla are dicecious ; indeed, he did not know 
the female flowers of Anacharis. Humboldt and Bonpland (Pl. Equinoct. 
ii. 150) place their Æ. granatensis in the same Class and Order, and state 
E 
[E 
N 
in 
a 
© 
omg 
£e 
E 
= 
LS 
-— 
= 
= 
G 
di 
EE 
= 
E 
plant is that now so named from the ega € and Canada ; and his Æ. 
guyanensis and the E. granatensis o oldt as also herma aphrodite 
aud in that he is correct. Tt is remar babe. that "aim although refer- 
ring to E. guyanensis in Michaux's work in 1803 (but by name only), does 
not seem to have published any description of it unti "ihe appearance of 
his paper (Mem. Inst.), which was issued in 1814, but communicated to 
the Institute in 1812. Pursh called the Canadian plant Serpicula occi- 
dentalis in 1814 (Fl. Amer. Septen. i. 33), and expressly states that the 
flowers are hermaphrodite. Nuttall called the same plant Udora (Gen. 
ii. 242) in 1818. He describes the U. canadensis as so decidedly uni- 
sexual, that the male flower is “ mi breaking off connection 
usually with the parent plant; it instantly ‘expands to the light, the 
€: also burst with elasticity, and the granular pollen vaguely floats 
n the surface of the water." Asa Gray gives a similar account of the 
hm flowers of his Anacharis. He says, “ 'The staminate flowers (which 
are rarely seen) commonly break off, as in Vallisneria, and float on the 
surface, where the ey expand and shed their pollen around the stigmas of 
the fertile flowers 
It appears from this that there are two series of plants closely resem- 
bling each other in appearance, of which one series has perfect triandrous 
flowers, and the other has incomplete dicecious flowers, of which the males 
are nearly or quite sessile, and have the curious habit of becoming de 
N:s. VOL. I. [APRIL 1, 1872.] H 
- 
- 
