496 Botany. 



in Charlton Wood is rather complicated, but I will give as good a description as 

 possible. When you arrive in the lane on left hand just out of Charlton from 

 Blackheath, get over the style by the first house on the right hand, and then 

 about fifty yards on your right, get over the hedge into a valley, where there is a 

 pond ; lower down than the pond Crocus aureus is found on both sides plenti- 

 fully in the proper season. This species is not mentioned in Lindley's Synopsis. 



Daniel Cooper. 



Allan Cuningham. — This gentleman has been appointed Curator of the Syd- 

 ney Botanic Garden in the stead of his brother, Richard Cuningham, who met 

 an untimely end when exploring the interior of Australia. Mr Cuningham sailed 

 from London in October last. 



Marsiliacece — M. Auguste de Saint-Hilaire has communicated to the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences of Paris, a notice on the structure and developement of 

 the reproductive organs of a speeies of Marsilea found in the vicinity of Agde. 

 These observations have been made by Esprit Fabre, a gardener in the neigh- 

 bourhood, and are sent to St Hilaire by M. Dunal, who has applied to the plant 

 the name of its discoverer. 



In Marsilea Fabri, there is seen at the base of each leaf a very short horizon- 

 tal . peduncle, to which a capsular involucrum is attached for the whole length, 

 which the adherence of the peduncle makes appear as if sessile. If the involu- 

 crum be cut in two, the processes are seen in each half, which in another species 

 have been taken for the divisions, and which separate the involucrum into the cells 

 where the small globular or elliptical bodies are contained. The involucrum opens 

 in two valves, and if one of them be detached, the peduncle is perceived articu- 

 lated ; and in the interior of the involucrum that part of the pedicelle above the arti- 

 culation gives rise to ramifications which cover the reproductive apparatus. It is 

 these which have been taken for the divisions, the ramifications subdivide them- 

 selves, and their extreme branches being delicate, are termined in a kind of small 

 ears or heads. 



From the opened involucrum springs a mucilaginous ring, which bears six or 

 seven sessile ears, (those mentioned above.) The ring enlarging carries with it 

 the ears, and breaks the communication between them and the receptacle ,■ soon 

 after one extremity of the ring detaches itself from the involucrum, is straight- 

 ened and now becomes a peduncle with a naked extremity, furnished latterly with 

 sessile ears. These are composed of two kinds of bodies, wedged against ano- 

 ther, and arranged spirally, these M. Fabre regards, the one as the anthers, the 

 other as the ovules. 



The ovules, of the number of ten or fifteen in each ear, are small bodies ter- 

 minated at one of their extremities by a narrow yellow nipple surrounded by a 

 sort of prominent hood, which the nipple passes. The interior of these bodies 

 is filled with a liquid in which numerous granules swim. The terminal nip- 

 ple is always turned towards the anthers ; these are small bodies found in a 

 membranous bag, in which there are numerous grains of pollen, which when 

 crushed under the microscope, are seen to throw out spermatic granules of great 

 delicacy. 



But it may be asked, on what proofs do MM. Fabre and Dunal assert, that 

 the bodies which they name ovules, are fecundated by those which they call an- 



