ON SOME HYBRID VINES. 



49 



these modes of placentation we find that which characterizes the 

 Astroniae (Astronia and Microplacis, BL), in which the placentae 

 are situated at the bottom of each of the two cells of the ovary at 

 the base of what may be called the columella. There is but a step 

 therefore from the unilocular ovary to the free central placenta of 

 Memecyleae. If the carpellary leaves of Astronia, instead of being 

 inflexed towards the centre of the ovary, were simply soldered by 

 the margins, remaining ovuliferous at the base, we should recon- 

 struct the unilocular ovary and the central placenta of the Me- 

 mecyleae and Spathandra. The great affinity which exists between 

 the different members of the family of Melastomaceae does not 

 allow us to admit amongst them differences of placentation so radical 

 as those which would result from the prevailing theory on the 

 organogenic nature of the free central placenta — to suppose, for 

 example, that in this same family of Melastomaceae the placentas 

 grow, indifferently, sometimes from the carpellary leaf, sometimes 

 from the elongated axis of the floral whorl. It seems to me 

 more natural, and at the same time more probable, that in all the 

 plants of this vast and beautiful family, the placentation, in spite 

 of appearances, is always a dependence of the ovarian leaves. I 

 might bring forward precisely similar modifications in the different 

 groups of the family of Aroideae, Caryophyllaceae, Portulaceae, &c. ; 

 and if the hypothesis is just in the families which I have just 

 quoted, why should it not be equally so for Myrsineae and Primu- 

 laceae." 



XII. Note on the effect of crossing some of the Southern Vines 

 of Prance with the variety Le Teinturier. 



Monsieur Henri Boitschet has addressed to the Eoyal Horti- 

 cultural Society a short pamphlet, of which the full title is given 

 below*, with the request that a report of it should be prepared, 

 with a view to making more generally known the curious fact 

 which is the result of his experiments. The pamphlet, it may be 

 remarked, has already been presented to the Prench Academy, 

 and inserted in the ' Comptes Rendus,' tome lx. p. 229. 



* Collection de vignes a sue rouge obtenues par le semis apres le croisement 

 des cepages Meridionaux avec le Teinturier, par M. Henri Bouschet, Membre de 

 la Societe Centrale d' Agriculture et Secretaire de la Societe d' Horticulture de 

 l'Herault. Montpellier, 1865, 8yo. pp. 11. 



TOL. I. E 



