PLANTS JAVANICjE RARIORES. 587 



family having an undivided stigma ; unless in such cases 

 the position of the confluent parts could be determined by 

 that of the two vascular cords generally observable in the 

 style, and continued into the axes of the lobes of a regu- 

 larly bifid stigma, when belonging to an ovarium composed 

 of two carpels. But even if this distinguishing character 

 should be admitted to be general, it is certainly not with- 

 out exception ; and in the only cases that I have examined 

 in Gesneriacea, where the lateral position of the lobes of 

 stigma may be supposed to exist, the apparent position 

 arises from the extreme breadth and manifest division of 

 the lips, the two vascular cords of the style being still 

 anterior and posterior.^ 



The only point of difference remaining, therefore, is [los 

 the existence of albumen in Gesneriacece and its absence in 

 CyrtandracecB. This character, however, is not absolutely 

 constant, there being cases in Cyrtandracece where the tio9 

 remains of albumen are visible in the apparently ripe seed ; 

 and in several Gesneriacecs it exists so sparingly as to be- 

 come a character of very little value,^ especially as it is not 

 here connected with other more important differences. 



' Here follows a note " Ou the relative position of tbe Divisions of Stigma 

 and Parietal Placentse in the Compound Ovarium of Plants," wliioh, Laving 

 been originally distributed also in a separate form, has been already given in 

 vol. i. pp. 553— 563.— Edit. 



^ The late Correa de Serra, in a very ingenious essay published in 1811,' 

 endeavoured to establish a test for ascertaining the importance of albumen in 

 relation to the affinities of plants, namely, that where the albumen is of a 

 texture very different from that of the embryo, which does not absorb it in 

 germination, its constancy may be depended on ; while in those cases where its 

 texture is nearly similar to that of the embryo, which derives from it its earliest 

 nourishment, its presence or absence becomes of little value. His hypothetical 

 expression of this difference is, that in the latter ease the embryo before 

 germination converts part of a uniform substance into its own body, and in 

 germinating derives nourishment from the remainder ; in the former it selects 

 what is suited for its nourishment, leaving a residuum which it does not 

 afterwards act upon, and whose presence is therefore constant. Among the 

 examples given of families in which thjs selection and residuum exist are 

 Graminea, PalmtB, Nyctagineee, Cari/ophylle^, and JHuphorbiacea. 



Soon after the publication of this essay a paper was read before the Linnean 

 Society of London, in which I endeavoured to prove that the test attempted to 

 be established by Correa was liable to many exceptions, and that his liypo- 



' ' Annales du Museum,' xviii. p. 20C. 



