Botany and Zoology. 105 
own observations is preceded by a good history of what was known upon 
the subject, from the beginning made by Dillenius down to the commu- 
nication of Michalet in the Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, 1860. That the 
little tympanum which covers the minute anthers and stigmas of Specu- 
ria perfoliata until after fertilization, is a rudimentary corolla, however, 
was shown by Dr. Torrey, in a paper read before the Lyceum of Natural 
History, New York, in 1830, but not published. 
One of the most interesting things to notice, and a curious confirma- 
tion of the intention to self-tertilize in the cases here considered, is the 
a 
the smail and closed flowers. In those of Ozalis Acetosella, as Moh in- 
forms us, the larger anthers contain only about two dozen, the smaller 
Scarcely a dozen pollen-grains,—gnly a few times more numerous than 
the ovules they are to fertilize, while in the normal blossoms they are in 
countless excess,—the economy in number being in proportion to the 
Sureness that they will do their work. Moreover, these pollen-grains never 
leave the anther, but, (as was observed by D. Miller and by Micha’et, 
but misunderstood, and neatly shown by Mohl,) send out their tubes to 
seek the stigmas, adjacent, indeed, but often at a considerable relative dis- 
tance, these tubes directing their course with the same precision, and in 
ne same mysterious manner, apparently, that they ordinarily do when 
d the ovarian cavity they seek the orifice of the ovules. 
'8 1s we:l seen in Viola, where, though it is barely possible that extra- 
tile anth 
here cannot be doubted. So Mohl concludes that, “considering that 
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ing demonstration duly came in Mr. Darwin's capital discovery 
m and other cases, the pollen may be less potent or evenmm- 
its own stigma, while that from another flower is prepotent! — 
these little precocivusly-fertilized flowers, of various and diverse fam- 
(Jour. Scr—se Vou. XXXIX, No. 115—Jax., 1865. 
14 
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