374 Extracts from Lindleifs Vegetable Kingdom, 



has explained with his usual skill the nature of the anther in Rhizo- 

 phora. In the plants belonging to that genus the anther is alveolar, 

 the sockets being filled with pollen, and in this circumstance it 

 resembles Viscum; but in its younger state the anther is oblong, 

 compressed laterally, and uninterrupted on its surface ; when it is 

 mature its two faces fall away, and leave behind a solid centre, in 

 cavities of which the palm has been generated. See Transactions of 

 the Medical and Physical Society, Calcutta. 



APIACEjE. 



776. Of these Ferula asafeetida is the plant described by Kcempfer 

 (Amsen. Exot. 533,) but F. persica and others are no doubt also the 

 origin of the drug. Griffith was of that opinion, (Ann. N. Hist. X, 

 1 93) and the fruits sent home to me by Sir John McNeill prove the 

 fact. 



HAMAMELIDACE.E. 



784. Mr. Griffith observed in Bucklandia and Sedgwickia that the 

 woody tissue is marked with circular dots, something like those 

 of conifers ; the same sharp-sighted botanist observed that in Buck- 

 landia the second membrane of the ovule protrudes beyond the 

 foramen in the ripe seed ! 



ACROGENS. 



5 1 . Sexes, however, are wholly missing ; that is to say, nothing 

 can be found which resembles the anthers and pistil of flowering 

 plants, except in some vague external circumstances : there is no 

 evidence to show that any one order of Acrogens possesses organs 

 which require to be fertilized, the one by the other, in order to effect 

 the generation of seeds. Hence those reproductive bodies of Acro- 

 gens which are analogous to seeds are called spores. Mr. Griffith 

 takes, however, a very different view of this question, and assigns 

 true sexes to Acrogens. 



He thinks it probable that we have at least three modifications 

 of the phenomenon of fecundation " among the higher acotyledon- 

 ous plants. In one the male influence is applied to the apex of 

 a pistillum, in the second to a nucleus without the intervention of 

 pistillary apparatus. In the third the male influence is exserted on a 



