102 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXVI. 
First we consider the fruit itself. Upon comparison of 
Figs. 2 and 3 it is seen that our wave-beaten specimen 
from Bodega, with its long stiff arms, lined with brushes of 
inflexed bristles, is a decided departure from Fig. 2, which 
represents the most mature 
fruit I have been able to 
find still attached to the 
spadix. Fig. 2 is also an 
approximate reproduction of 
. Ruprecht’s figure. Fig. 1 
shows a younger stage. 
The feature which catches 
the attention in Fig. 3 is, of 
course, the arrangements of the two arms, with the bristles 
or barbs. This is what I have called the ‘dissemination 
mechanism"; but that is rather a misnomer, for it is a device, 
not for scattering the seeds, but for anchoring them after ied 
have been drifted away from the parent plant. 
But the first question is, What is the origin of these OM 
and how are they developed from the object we see in Fig. 2? 
Curiously enough, the key to this puzzle was unwittingly 
stumbled upon by Ruprecht in 1852. He noticed upon the 
fin-like expansion which extends between 
the body and the arms of the green fruit 
the parallel darker streaks marked f in 
Fig. 2; for he remarks that, upon dissec- 
tion, he found imbedded in the softer, 
semitranslucent tissue, bundles of braune 
Fasern, and it is these brown fibers which, 
as we shall see, play an important part in 
one chapter of Phyllospadix life history. / Z 
In Fig. 4 is shown a diagrammatic sec- “ ia 
tion of the stage of fruit shown in Fig. 2, F'S- 3-— Fruit as found attached 
cut in the plane of the two arms. The m 
pericarp is here so differentiated that we may distinguish, for 
convenience, two parts, — what we may call the exocarp, the 
| Soft, spongy outer portion; and the endocarp. The latter is 
- eue or absent at the lower end of the seed, but it | Caeps 

FiG. 1. 
Fic. r.— Early stage 
of fruit. 

Fic. 2.— Later stage 
of same. 


