868 ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLYCOTYLEDON V, 



among the Gymnosperms. The maximum number of cotyledonary 

 members observed in any species of Persoonia is eight, though this 

 is not a common number; whereas in some species of Pinus as 

 many as fifteen are produced. 



The interesting peculiarity referred to, though first announced 

 by the younger Gartner for one species, had been noted some 

 years earlier by Robert Brown, who had had the opportunity of 

 studying living representatives of twenty species of the genus 

 during his visit to Australia. As the polycotylous character of 

 the embryo offered no special attraction from a classificatory point 

 of view, Robert Brown did not trouble to place on record the 

 results of his observations in detail; but he refers to them in 

 general terms more than once, both in his renowned paper "On the 

 PrOteacese of Jussieu "* and in the Prodromus (1810). Thus, in 

 the former, he says " The number of cotyledons when more than 

 two is a circumstance of little importance. In Persoonia, the only 

 genus of the order in which a plurality of cotyledons has been 

 observed, I am not even certain that their number is constant in 

 those species in which this anomaly occurs " (p. 37). And of the 

 Order — "Embryo dicotvledoneus (raro polycotyledoneus) rectus" 

 (pp.46, 48); or "Embryo dicotyledoneus (quandoque polycotyle- 

 doneus) rectus" (Prodromus, p. 363). And of the genus Persoonia 

 — " Ootyledones ssepius plures" (Op. cit. p. 160; Prod, p.372). 



General statements of more or less similar import are to be 

 found in various botanical works of reference. For example, Sir 

 Joseph Hooker in his "Flora Tasmania? " says of Persoonia 

 " embryone ssepe 3-5-cotyledoneo " (Vol. i. p. 321), a statement 

 possibly founded on personal observation. I have not had access 

 to the Volume (xiv.) of Decandolle's Prodromus which contains 

 Meissner's account of the Proteacese, to which the Baron makes 

 reference. 



In 1848, Duchartre published the results of his inquiry into 

 the nature of the cotyledonary members of polycotyledonous 

 embryos so-called. He says that he had desired to extend his 



* Trans. Linn. Soc. x. pp.37, 46, 48, 160(1811). Kead Jan. 17th, 1S09. 



