378 ACCOUNT OF A NEW GENUS OE PLANTS, 



most singular modification of stamen that has yet been 

 observed. 



It appears to me of importance to inquire into the real 

 relation which so remarkable a structure bears to the more 

 ordinary states of Anthera. 



2n] A satisfactory determination of this point, while it 

 would certainly assist in explaining the nature of the other 

 parts of the column, might also in some degree lead to 

 correct notions of the affinities of the genus ; and the ques- 

 tion is perhaps sufficiently interesting, even independent of 

 these results. 



In this inquiry, it is necessary in the first place to take 

 a general view of the principal forms of Antherse in phasno- 

 gamous plants ; all of which, however different they 

 may appear, I consider as modifications of one common 

 structure. 



In this assumed regular structure or type of Anthera, I 

 suppose it to consist of two parallel foUiculi or thecce, fixed 

 by their whole length to the margins of a compressed 

 filament : each tlieca being originally filled with a pulpy 

 substance, on the surface or in the cells of which the pollen 

 is produced ; and having its cavity divided longitudinally 

 into two equal cells, the subdivision being indicated exter- 

 nally by a depression or furrow, which is also the line of 

 dehiscence.-^ 



' A certain degree of reserablauce between this supposed regular stale of 

 Anthera, and that which in a former essay (on Compositae, Linn. Soc. Transact. 

 %\\, p. 89) I have considered as the type of PistiUum in phfenogamous plants, 

 will probably be admitted ; and both structures have, as it appears to me, an 

 evident relation to the Leaf, from whose modiflcatious all the parts of the 

 flower seem to be formed. 



This hypothesis of the formation of the flower may be considered as having 

 originated with Linnfeus in his Prolepsis Planiarum, though he has not very 

 clearly stated it, and has also connected it with other speculations, which have 

 since been generally abandoned. It is, however, more distinctly proposed by 

 Professor Link (in Thilos. Bot. JProdr. p. 141 ), and very recently has been 

 again brought forward, with some modifications, by M. Aubert dn Petit 

 Tliouars. 



In adopting the hypothesis as stated by Professor Link, I shall, without 

 entering at present into its explanation or defence, offer two observations in 

 illustration of it, founded on considerations that have not been before ad- 

 verted to. 



My first observation is, that the principal point in which the antheroa and 



