SCIE^^TIFIC COMMITTEE, .lULY ao. 



cxxxiii 



sent by Mr. Swan, the sepals were nearly normal, the petals more or less 

 leafy. Within the petals, where in ordinary circumstances we should 

 expect to find the stamens, was a tuft of flower-stalks, each terminated by 

 a globose head of green scales, intermixed with which were a number of 

 more or less perfect but detached stamens, and sundry carpels, free at the 

 edges, which bore numerous ovules. The apex was terminated by a short 

 style, capped with a somewhat globose stigma. The flower was, there- 

 fore, hermaphrodite, or at least bisexual, a condition which occurs some- 

 times in the nearly-allied Begonias. The illustration (fig. 245) shows a 

 small portion only of this much-branched inflorescence, together with a 

 male flower prolified, and, on the left, one of the secondary flowers from 



iG. 246. — Portion of Female Flower and Fruit of Cucumber, showing Prolification 

 lateral and axillary, production of Secondary and Tertiary Fruits, and other 

 changes. {Gardeners' Chronicle.) 



the prolified flower showing the petals, the stamens, and the open 

 carpels. 



" The marginal nature of the placenta is obvious, and will be of interest 

 to those who remember the controversy that was waged as to the nature 

 of the placenta of Cucurbits some sixty years since ! Others will 

 remember the discussion carried on some forty years ago by Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, the late Charles Darwin, and others, as to the bisexual flowers 

 of Begonias. 



" In the female flower the condition of affairs was, making allowance 

 for the difference . in sex, very similar. It will be remembered that the 

 outer part of a Cucumber or Gourd is really a dilatation of the flower- 

 stalk into what is called a receptacular cup or tube. With thi^ tube the 



