1 94 MISS A. M. GELDART ON STRATIOTES ALOIDES, L. 
situated opposite the outer facets, accordingly alternate 
with the ridges. At the lower end they run into the fleshy 
layer of the pedicel, but at the upper end terminate with 
12 points which, standing in pairs, make the cone apparently 
6-cleft at the top. Nolte says that if a longitudinal section 
of the fruit be made and a cross cut taken out of the middle 
part, these extensions can be unfolded, so that the apparent 
compartments of the fruit can be divided without artificial 
separation (Nolte, t. i. fig. n). The fruit is described by many 
authors as a hexagonal berry or capsule in which these 
partition-walls are said to be grown together in the axis of 
the fruit, which Nolte thinks is by no means the case. More- 
over, he says, each pair of these false partition-walls or 
extensions is the attachment joint of a style, the styles 
accordingly alternate with the compartments of the fruit. 
Irmisch says that the partitions, free from one another in 
the centre and at the sides, appeared to him to be closed in 
the angles, not open as Nolte describes them. 
In the Sutton plants in September the seeds are yellow, 
the compartments and walls of the fruit are a rich orange, 
the outer integument dark brown, the whole filled with 
clear white mucilage which surrounds the seeds. The fruit 
as it develops becomes irregularly lobed. Nolte says there 
are usually 5-6 seeds in each compartment, accordingly 
30-36 in each fruit, but he adds that even in localities where 
the plant perfects fruit, all the seeds are seldom fertilized, 
usually only 2 in each compartment. They are attached in 
the outer angles which the extensions form with the fleshy 
layer ; the seeds are alternate, anatropous, not pendulous. 
When the flowering period ends and fruit is forming the 
whole plant goes again under water, there ripens fruit which 
ruptures by decay in the water, bursting irregularly, and 
the seeds covered by viscid mucilage are strewn on the ground 
(Hooker’s ed. of Le Maout and Decaisne’s Desc. and An. Bot. 
1:873, p. 757). Simultaneously with the ripening of the fruit 
the growing buds develop on their stalks between the leaves. 
Klinsmann-says, in N. Germany Stratiotes is such a common 
plant that it infests ditches and pools as a troublesome weed, 
