*4 0N THE ASCLEPIADEiE* 



in the Asclepiadeae, has attracted the attention of 

 botanists since the days of Tourneforte : it is there- 

 fore not a little remarkable, that two opposite 

 opinions should still be held even respecting the 

 origin of these parts, and that between these 

 opinions botanists should be almost equally di- 

 vided. 



In a paper which was some time ago read to the 

 Linnean Society of London, I had occasion, in 

 inculcating the necessity of examining the parts 

 of the flower before expansion, to advert to this 

 tribe of plants ; and I there entered at some 

 length, both into the opinions generally received 

 respecting their male organs, and also into that 

 which I had deduced from an examination of 

 these parts before the opening of the corolla : And 

 being unwilling to repeat now, what I then stated, 

 I shall content myself with referring to the figures 

 and descriptions published by Jacquin in the first 

 volume of his " Miscellanea Austriaca," which give 

 a correct idea of the state of the organs after ex- 

 pansion ; and only add the observations I have made 

 on one species of the family, the Asclepias Syriaca, 

 in the earlier stages of the flower. 



The flower-bud of this plant I first examined, 

 while the unexpanded corolla was yet green and 

 considerably shorter than the calyx. At this 

 period, the gland-like bodies which afterwards oc- 

 cupy the angles of the stigma were absolutely 

 invisible ; the furrows of its angles were extremely 

 slight, and, like the body of the stigma, green ; the 



