SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
231 
on other blossoms, thus probably fertilized them. This led him to examine the 
blossoms more closely, and the result has been a very curious discovery. 
Early in flowering, the standard is flattened against the other parts, but later 
on, it becomes reflexed. On opening some of the blossoms before the standard 
was reflexed, Mr. Leighton noticed that there were ten anthers, of two dif- 
ferent sets and sizes, alternating with each other. “ One of these sets con- 
sisted of five very large sagittate anthers ; whilst the other set consisted of 
five very small rotundo-oblong anthers, supported on stamens scarcely reaching 
to the base of the sagittate anthers, but both sets not half the length of the 
pistil. Strange to say, in this early stage of the blossom, the pollen of the 
sagittate anthers was all matured and falling from the open anther-cells, 
whilst the anthers of the other set were all closed, and the pollen in an im- 
mature state. On examining other blossoms whose standard was reflexed, 
I found that the large sagittate anthers were all withered, and their pollen 
gone, whilst the shorter and smaller stamens had become greatly elongated, 
so as to become equal in length to the pistil, their anther-cells expanded, and 
their pollen mature. In this state the elongated stamens and the pistil, with 
the mature pollen of the, at first, small anthers, were by the weight of the 
bee extruded, and, I presume, fertilization effected. I compared under the 
microscope the size and appearance of the pollen from the two sets of anthers, 
but could distinguish no appreciable difference.” He now opened some of 
the blossoms with the unrefiexed standards, and by the aid of a camel-hair 
pencil, removed some of the pollen from the sagittate anthers, and applied to 
the stigmas of other blossoms with unrefiexed standards, first carefully 
removing the unexpanded anthers of the smaller set of stamens. After due 
time had elapsed, he examined them, and found that fecundation had not 
taken place. Thus there appears to be a state of things in Lupinus poly- 
phyllus not unlike that which Mr. Darwin has pointed out in Linum and 
other plants. 
The Parts involved in the Process of Defoliation is the title of a good essay 
read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh (Jan. 11th). The author, 
Mr. W. R. M‘Nab, believes that the only key to the nature of the process 
of defoliation is the study of the development of the leaf. The leaf first 
appears as a small mamilla or cushion, which the author called the phyllo- 
blast. This, at a certain stage, became differentiated into two parts, one near 
the axis — a stationary part — the other a rapidly-developing part attached to 
the axis, not directly, but through the lower part. The stationary lower part 
he called the hypophyll ; the other the epiphyll. The hypophyll developed 
the stipules from any part of its surface ; the epiphyll developed the parts of 
the leaf proper — lamina and petiole. The stipules are thus not probably 
appendages of the petiole, but belong to a morphologically distinct part. In 
the leaves of deciduous plants (those with free lateral stipules being most 
typical, and in which the process is best seen), the leaf falls off so as to leave 
the stipules and hypophyll entire, as in Cytisus Laburnum, Lirriodendrum 
tulipifera, &c., the cicatrix being formed by the hypophyll. Mr. M‘Nab con- 
tends that the separation, then, occurs between one part of the leaf and 
another — between what he has termed the hypophyll and epiphyll — and not 
between the axis and the leaf, as has been generally supposed to be the case. 
The Flora of the Shetland Isles. — Mr. Ralph Tate, F.G.S., who was one of 
