BOTANICAL NOTES. 69 



looked. No doubt it has a wide distribution over the South Island, 

 and may be looked for in spots where temporary pools form in wet 

 weather. 



Accena Buchanani, Hook, f. In the " Handbook of the New 

 Zealand Flora " this species is said to have a single stamen I have 

 long had doubts as to the accuracy of this statement, and an exami- 

 nation of a considerable number of specimens, gathered in the original 

 habitat, shows that the number of stamens is constantly tioo. It has 

 also two styles. The yellowish-green hue of the leaves, usually so 

 characteristic of the plant in the valleys of the Upper Clutha, does not 

 hold in other localities such as Spear Grass Flat and Ida Valley. I 

 make this statement on the supposition that the species of Accena from 

 the latter localities is A. Buchanani (Hook, f.), as I have every reason 

 to believe that it is. 



Rhipogonum scandens, Forster. After examining a large series of 

 the fruits of the ' supple-jack ' I find that the berry is frequently 

 3-seeded with all the seeds of the ordinary size, and occasionally 

 4-seeded, in which case one or two of the seeds are smaller than usual. 

 I have not had opportunity to examine the ovary, which is doubtless 

 3-celled, though more than one ovule must now and then occur in some 

 of the cells. This point is well worth working out, and I hope some 

 naturalist living near a piece of virgin bush will undertake its 

 investigation. 



Salicornia indica?, Will. In this our common littoral 'glass-wort,' 

 some of the flowers are hermaphrodite. The perfect flowers are, I 

 think, proterogynous. The mimber of stamens is constantly two. 

 Many flower spikes are, I believe, purely pistillate without a trace 

 of stamens, and in these the mature cones are smaller than those found 

 on the hermaphrodite spikes. It would be well if these observations, 

 made at Dunedin, were checked in some other part of the colony. 



Gratiola nana, Bentham. In this species the stigma is bi-lamellate, 

 and the lamella? are very sensitive. When touched with the tip of a 

 blade of grass they close at once. The movement begins very promptly 

 and is, I think, confined to the inferior plate, which rises up so as to 

 press against the immobile superior one. Most likely the lighting of 

 pollen grains on the stigmatic surface would suffice to initiate the 

 movement of closing, and its significance would in that case lie in 

 its rendering the escape of pollen impossible. When mechanically 

 irritated the closure of the lamellae is not persistent but passes off in a 

 few minutes. 



Proterandry in the Gentians. I have always found the flowers of 

 Gentiana montana, Forst., G. pleurogynoides, Griesb., and G. saxosa, 

 Forst., strongly proterandrous. The stigmatic lobes are closely appressed 

 and too immature for fertilisation when the pollen is shed from the 

 anthers. This would prevent a single flower from fertilising itself, but 

 it would not preclude different flowers in the same plant from fertilising 

 one another. The extrorse position of the anthers is doubtless another 

 adaptation for making self-fertilisation difficult. 



Plagianthus Lyallii, Hook, f. This species of ' ribbon-wood ' was 

 formerly ranked in the genus Hoheria, A. Cunn., and there seem to be 

 good reasons for doubting if that is not its proper position. Bo this as 



