Chap. IV. LAGEESTRCEMIA INDICA. 16Y 



Lagerstrcetnia Indica. — This plant, a member of the 

 Lythraceae, may perhaps be heterostyled, or may formerly 

 have been so. It is remarkable from the extreme variability 

 of its stamens. On a plant, growing in my hothouse, the 

 flowers included from nineteen to twenty-nine short sta- 

 mens with yellow pollen, which correspond in position 

 with the shortest stamens of Lythrum; and from one to 

 five (the latter number being the commonest) very long 

 stamens, with thick flesh-coloured filaments and green 

 pollen, corresponding in position with the longest stamens 

 of Lythrum. In one flower, two of the long stamens pro- 

 duced green, while a third produced yellow pollen, although 

 the filaments of all three were thick and flesh-coloured. 

 In an anther of another flower, one cell contained green 

 and the other yellow pollen. The green and yellow pollen- 

 grains from the stamens of different length are of the same 

 size. The pistil is a little bowed upwards, with the stigma 

 seated between the anthers of the short and long stamens, 

 so that this plant was mid-styled. Eight flowers were fer- 

 tilised with green pollen, and six with yellow pollen, but 

 not one set fruit. This latter fact by no means proves that 

 the plant is heterostyled, as it may belong to the class of 

 self -sterile species. Another plant growing in the Botanic 

 Qardens at Calcutta, as Mr. J. Scott informs me, was long- 

 styled, and it was equally sterile with its own pollen ; whilst 

 a long-styled plant of L. reginw, though growing by itself, 

 produced fruit. I examined dried flowers from two plants 

 of L. parviflora, both of which were long-styled, and they 

 differed from L. Indica in having eight long stamens with 

 thick filaments, and a crowd of shorter stamens. Thus the 

 evidence whether L. Indica is heterostyled is curiously con- 

 flicting; the unequal number of the short and long sta- 

 mens, their extreme variability, and especially the fact of 

 their pollen-grains not differing in size, are strongly op- 

 posed to this belief: on the other hand, the difference in 

 length of the pistils in two of the plants, their sterility 

 with their own pollen, and the difference in length and 

 structure of the two sets of stamens in the same flower, and 

 in the colour of their pollen, favour the belief. We know 

 that when plants of any kind revert to a former condition, 

 they are apt to be highly variable, and the two halves of the 

 same organ sometimes differ much, as in the case of the 

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