in the Female Flower of Dammara australis. 187 
In the next stage, the connation of the carpels by their bases 
is very manifest (Plate IV. figs. 5 and 6). The central mam- 
milla is now very well marked, and, I daresay, may with pro- 
priety be termed “ovule.” After this stage there exists a 
slight gap in my materials, as 1 was somewhat delayed in ob- 
taining my second supply. 
In the flower represented in fig. 8, the different parts, although 
very considerably grown, are easily recognised in their rela- 
tion to the corresponding parts in the earlier stage. (‘To avoid 
confusion in description, I shall term that surface of the pistil 
which is applied to the “scale” the posterior, and that which 
is exposed, the anterior. ) 
The “nucleus” still projects to a comparatively large ex- 
tent beyond the two carpels which surround it, and by whose 
connate bases it is covered to about its middle in front, and to 
a somewhat less extent behind. The pointed apices of the 
free portions of the carpels extend at the sides nearly as far 
as the extremity of the ovule, falling only a little short of 
it. There is thus a deep, rounded notch, both before and 
behind, between the apices of the carpels; the posterior notch 
being the deeper. The pistil is somewhat compressed from 
before backwards, but it is more convex before than behind. 
Its thin lateral margins (corresponding to the mesial dorsal 
lines of the carpels) do not yet exhibit any of that want of 
symmetry which afterwards occurs, from the formation of a 
Wing on one side. 
The extremity of the ovule (“nucleus”) is now found to be 
compressed from before backwards, or, better to express it, 
thinned off to an edge which is curved slightly forwards (see 
Plate IV. figs. 8 and 9). In the subsequent stages this edge 
is often developed into a more or less leaf-like lamina, which 
is folded over the anterior surface of the exposed portion of 
the ovule. This lamina varies very much in the extent of its 
development ; it is usually small and irregularly shaped, as in 
fig. 13; but in one specimen which I possess, it is produced 
into a beautifully tapered point (Plate IV. fig. 14). This pro- 
tion. Even the structure represented in figs. 1 and 2, although no doubt repre- 
senting truly enough the essentials of the early stage, yet in minor particulars 
may not be perfectly trustworthy. 
