178 THE BOTANICAL MAGAZINE. [Vol. xxix. No. 346. 



stamens roughly alternate with each other, but they are not 

 superposed (pi. VII, figs. 5, 6, 16, 26, 27, etc.). 



In the centre of the flower there is pistil consisting of a 

 single ovoid carpel with a subsessile, obliquely dilated stigma 

 (pi. VII, figs. 19, 20, 30, and 31). The symmetry of the carpel 

 is either median or oblique, as in several other members of this 

 family. The ventral suture of the ovary is very thick and fleshy, 

 and forms a prominent column which is more than half the size 

 of the ovary proper. It is united with the latter along the 

 middle region alone, so that there is a deep longitudinal cleft 

 on either side of the column. A transverse section which is de- 

 lineated in fig. 21 shows this feature more clearly. The greater 

 part of the ventral column, in particular that part which lies 

 outside the vascular bundle, consists of large isodiametric cells 

 with thin watery contents and no intercellular spaces. No doubt 

 this tissue has a water-storing function. The apical portion of 

 the ventral column is obliquely dilated into a flabellate stigma, 

 the surface of which is directed towards the dorsal suture, a 

 feature not often met with in apocarpous flowers. 



The ovary contains a single, basal, anatropous ovule with 

 ventral raphe. The integument consists of a comparatively thick 

 primine and a thin seeundine. At the time of fecundation the 

 primine is longer than the seeundine forming the micropylar 

 orifice, and immediately after the fertilization it rapidly increases 

 in size and envelopes ths seed. 



Shortl}' after fertilization, the ovary-wall, which up to this 

 stage is quite smooth, becomes furnished with a very thin, 

 inconspicuous indumentum. In the fruit the hairs are more 

 easily visible, and become yellowish brown in colour. They are 

 distributed all over the fruit with the exception of the ventral 

 column, and are more numerous near the ridges. 



In both the species it is often found, particularly towards 

 the base of the spike, that flowers apparently possess more than 

 nine stamens — sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen, or even eigh- 

 teen. This is brought about by the fact that one or two ad- 

 ditional flowers are attached to a normal flower. In other 

 words, they are not individual flowers, but groups of flowers, 



