EASTBOURNE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 29 
in ‘a membranous case or spathe, but though occasionally I found 
small pieces of the cellular tissue partly surrounding the stamens and 
pistil, I failed in any case to find them attached to it, as the spathe 
is in the Arum e; and I believe that the inflorescence simply 
springs from a narrow opening in the cuticle re = fro sy aa bes 
the elim raised by the protrusion of the 
taken for the spathe; at all events, I etek ‘found that the pistil 
and stamens came off by the slightest touch of a needle, perfectly free. 
The inflorescence is quite unique in its structure, and consists solely 
of two stamens and a pistil, the extreme breadth of the whole when 
stam 
remarkably thick in comparison with the size of the flower, being 
about one-seventieth of an inch in ars or nearly one-third of 
the breadth of the flower; they ie also this peculiarity, that when 
fully grown and t i 
botanists, that they should be considered as separate flowers: in fact 
that the plant is moneecious, each stamen being a flower, and the pistil 
another. The true interpretation being, as far as my observation 
the species, the plant floating on the water and being 
thus exposed to every vicissitude of weather, it is so 
should wind or rain Tse en from one stamen, the ovule 
8 
may be fertilised by the other when it becomes mature. The anthers, 
of which there are two to each stamen, are slightly oval or pyriform, 
and about one-hundredth of an inch in diameter, and open by a tra- 
verse slit to discharge the pollen, which is muricate or slightly spinous 
and about one-thousandth of an inch in diameter. A remarkable fact 
in so minute a flower is, that the pollen tubes are plainly visible and 
are so well developed that I have observed them continue intact on 
ly t 
rises between the two stamens; and is formed of loose cellular tissue, 
cylindrical or mey. urnshaped, pet shorter than the stamens 
when fully grown contains generally two ovaries at the base, 
with a thickened style, of about the same diameter as the filaments of 
testa, and surrounded by a thin esct-Eeanupisren nt ce siiniar covering, 
which can be separated from the true seed, and may be designed simp! 
to afford means of its more readily floating on the surface of the water. 
At the upper end of the seed is a small circular cap, which is 
by the swelling cellular tissue as the seed germinates, and in all 
the cases I have examined remains attached to the young fronds, even 
