H. C. Botanic Gardens^ Calcutta, 255 



shall present naked ovula in connection with carpel leaves so 

 convoluted and connate as to present a perfectly distinct style. 



It is to be considered that the explanation I have at- 

 tempted to give, is not at variance with those views of the 

 origin of the placentae that originated, so far as I know, with 

 M. Schleiden, and which are considered by many to afford the 

 best explanation of the free central placenta. In this view 

 the only anomaly is the want of the usual cohesion between 

 the style and stigma : this, as 1 have said, appears to me less 

 anomalous than it does if the third method of explanation be 

 adopted. On the whole, therefore, I beg to propose this 

 plant to Botanists, as an instance in which the placenta is 

 the termination of the axis, bearing around its base a verti- 

 cillus of ovula, and produced upwards into a stigma, a single 

 organ, surrounded for the most part by an ordinary style 

 with which it has no connection. 



The venation of the carpels appears to me worthy of 

 notice, they have no dorsal vascular fasciculi, deriving such 

 partial supplies as they have appeared to me to present 

 from the vessels supplying the ovula, which vessels appear de- 

 rived from the fascicles, supplying the stamina or perianth. 



Such a mode of distribution of course suggests the idea 

 of a definite grouping of the ovula, and if the primary 

 fascicles are derived from those running to the stamina, 

 they have precisely the situation they should have if they 

 were ordinary placentary fascicles of an ordinary syncar- 

 pous pistillum. The supposed grouping, however, I have 

 not been able to detect, the primary fascicles dividing so as 

 to present on a transverse section a circle of vessels sur- 

 rounding the axis, and moreover after supplying the ovula, 

 they pass into the substance of the carpel leaves. 



I may also mention the curious circumstances, that though 

 the general direction of the ovula may be considered as pen- 

 dulous, and though the raphe is in all extrorse, many of the 

 seeds must be erect and have the raphe introrse. 



2 K 



