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DR DICKSON ON DEVELOPMENT OF 



have we not in Salvadora, with oppositi-sepalous stamens and solitary exalbu- 

 minous seed,* a plant bearing the same relation to Lentibulariacese, with numerous 

 exalbuminous seeds, as Plumbaginacese, with oppositi-petalous stamens and 

 solitary albuminous seed, bears to Primulacese, with numerous albuminous seeds ? 

 I believe that in Salvadoracese with Lentibulariacese, on the one hand, and 

 Plumbaginacese with Primulacese, on the other, we have two parallel nearly 

 allied series. I shall not, however, pursue this subject further, as my personal 

 knowledge of Salvador a is very limited. 



Diagram of the flower of Pinguicula vulgaris, L., showing the aestivation of calyx and corolla, the stamens and 

 staminodes superposed to the anterior and lateral sepals, and the one-celled ovary with free central placenta. 

 The wall of the ovary is represented as divided into five parts by two plain and three dotted lines, the two 

 plain lines representing the division of the stigma into two lips or of the capsule into two valves, the three 

 dotted lines representing the abnormal fissures in the above mentioned monstrosities. 



* Wight (Icones pi. Ind. Orient, t. 1621), Endlicher (Genera, p. 349), Lindley (Veget. 

 Kingd. p. 652), and Payer (Lecons, p. 14) agree in describing Salvadora as having a unilocular 

 ovary with solitary erect ovule. Professor Oliver has kindly examined for me flowers of S. persica, 

 L., and S. Wightiana, PL, from the Kew Herbarium, of which he reports in a letter as follows : — 

 " In each of these I find a 1-celled ovary with a solitary basal ovule." My own somewhat limited 

 examination of the flowers of S. persica has led me to the same conclusion. On the other hand, 

 Planchon (Sur les Salvadoracees, Ann. des Sc. Nat. 3 me serie x. p. 190), and more recently MM. 

 Maout and Decaisne (Traite de Botanique, p. 453) describe the ovary here (Planchon in the 

 genus Salvadora, Maout and Decaisne in the order Salvadoracese) as bilocular, with two collateral 

 ascending ovules in each cell. The only explanation I can suggest for the statement in the " Traite 

 de Botanique," is that the authors have probably followed Planchon, for M. Decaisne had formerly 

 described S. oleoides as having " ovarium . . . uniloculare, loculo uniovulato " (Jacquemont 

 Voyage, p. 140, t. 144); while M. Planchon's description is so opposed to the results of other 

 botanists, and so unlike anything I myself have been able to see, that I am constrained to believe 

 that it was some other plant, and not Salvadora, that he examined. I should mention, however, that 

 Decaisne (Jacquemont Voy. t. 144) gives a figure of a fruit of S. Madurensis containing three seeds. 



