Botany and Zoology. 288 



mv serve to give a dear coTiception of the probable relation, than that 

 'vhn:li can be said to be conclusively made out. The present paper, upon 

 the strength of an interesting monstrosity in the flowers of a Geranium, 

 controverts the current view in some respects, mainly in that point which 

 ide/itifies the line of the dehiscence of the anther cell with the margin of 

 the blade of the leaf. As to this, it is obvious enough that the lines of 

 dehiscence in the outermost and less complete anthers of Nymphcea are 

 really not continuous with the margins of the petal-like filament, and also 

 that the cells appear to belong to the upper stratum of the stamineal leaf, 

 let we are not clear that the current hypothesis, liberally interpreted, 

 need be discarded, although it needs modiiScation. That the anther an- 

 swers to the blade of a leaf, and the pollen to parenchyma, specially de- 

 veloped, Prof. Oliver equally holds; but his conception of the homology 

 of the bilocellate anther-cells is not explicit, at least, we do not welt ap- 

 prehend it. So good an observer as he is will hardly be content until he 

 shall be able to offer a clearer as well as completer exposition. 

 . tpon Mohl's authority, the ordinary received view is credited to Cas- 

 sini. But Brown's Rafaesia-p8per is a year earlier than Cassini's article 

 referred to; and we suppose that Brown would have claimed that his 

 paragraph on the type of the anther, on p. 211, with the appended foot- 

 ^"te, expresses or implies nearly the whole. And Keeper, who soon after 

 developed the hypothesis nearly as now received, refers to Brown, but 

 jot to Cassini. It is true that Brown, in his notion that pollen was pro- 

 <^uced, like ovula, "on the margins of the modified leaf," was quite 

 astray. But it is curious that >rof. Oliver, who quotes this remark, 

 seoms not to have noticed that it, in connection with the context, by im- 

 plication must assign to Brown the paternity of the current hypothesis, 

 at least aa re.^pects the point which is here' controverted. And this hy- 

 pothesis accords so well with nine anthers out of ten, and those the most 

 jormal, that, with Mohl, we are not yet inclined to abandon it. "That 

 "le septa of ' untransforraed tissue' may be regarded morphologically as 

 resulting, in part from the inflected epidermis of the adjacent anther- 

 fe'ls," would be readily conformable with Brown's view, as we judge from 

 ^_ language; and the fact that the septum frequently shows signs of 

 •^^'ng bilaraellar, might also be adduced. But, on the other hand, its 

 ^ganic connection with the connective, or with the dorsal part 



th the line of dehiscence, is too obvious to be overlooked, 

 ^oiduig, still more strictly than does Prof. Oliver, the notion that the 

 father IS the body or lamina of the stamineal leaf, we must agree with 

 «'m in his estimate of the peculiar theory of Mr. Bentham, broached sev- 

 g jears ago, and recently explained and defended, (in Jour. Linn. Soc. 

 .p. 118, 122), viz., that anthers are homologous with petiolar glands, the 

 ''^Ji'na in stamens being either wholly absent, or represented by a petal- 

 'a appendage of the connective, of which we suppose that of most Com- 

 f'**^* and in Asclepias would be good examples. Viewed morphologi- 

 Jf"y or physiologically, this seems to us equally a retrograde step. But 

 we did receive this hypothesis, we should be led thereby to believe 

 [.*h.ch now we do not) that a petal with a stamen before it might some- 

 ^ be horaolofiroua to a sino-ie leaf. 



and Sterculiacecs—tiie articlfl 



