880 ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLYCOTYLKDONY. 



but does not ripen many seeds. I this year picked up several 

 and sowed them, but they have not come up. As I was particu- 

 larly anxious to preserve the plant, I invariably looked around it 

 for seedlings whenever I entered the garden, and a few days since 

 discovered two just breaking the ground. I then found that this 

 curious plant had three (!) cotyledons, which are awl-shaped and 

 perfectly equal in size and appearance. As I never recollect to 

 have heard of a plant with three cotyledons before, I thought it 

 worth mentioning, in order to compare it, if possible, with 

 Schoepjia, Gaiadendron, Ancuba, <fcc, the other terrestrial genera 

 of (so-called) Lora?ithacece." 



In the " Flora Australiensis " Mr. Bentham says of Nuytsia — 

 " Embryo with 3 or 4 unequal cotyledons " (Vol. iii., p.387, 1866). 

 In Bentham and Hooker's " Genera Plantarum " the embryo is 

 described as ... " cotyledonibus 2-4 infequalibus radicula 

 supera longioribus." (Vol. iii. p. 206, 1883). 



Of 26 young seedlings raised from seed kindly supplied to me 

 by Dr. Cleland, one had 2 unusually broad cotyledons which 

 appeared to have escaped undergoing the prevalent subdivision; 

 fourteen nominally had 3, and the remaining eleven nominally 4. 

 But a considerable majority of the twenty-five specimens presented 

 some phase of a condition like that present in the most extreme 

 cases of the transitional forms of species of Persoonia already 

 mentioned. That is to say, instead of the intercotyledonary 

 clefts being all of equal depth, one cotyledonary member may be 

 seen to be separated from its neighbour on one side by a cleft 

 which is not so deep as that which separates it from its neighbour 

 on the other side. Two cotyledonary members may be affected 

 in this way. I consider these to represent cases of incomplete 

 cotyledonary subdivision. Otherwise no cases of bifid or bipar- 

 tite cotyledons were met with. 



Dr. Cleland sent me his list for thirty-two seedlings (natural 

 seedlings, I believe these were) examined by him — twenty-three 

 (nominally) had 3 cotyledons, and nine had 4; minor details being 

 left out of account. 



