CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
5 
order Composite ; and the latter suggestion may be adopted 
without having recourse to the idea that the glands are “ a series 
of modified stamens.^^ In regard to the existence of such a disk 
as I have suggested, we have some evidence in Nastanthus, where 
we find the usual confluence of the lower half of the staminal 
filaments into a monadelphous tube [tubillus of Richard), which 
soon becomes adnate to the tube of the corolla : we find in the 
mouth of this “ tubillus ” an internal row of minute, free, linear 
hyaline teeth, alternating with the upper or free portions of the 
filaments, rounded at their apex, and connected together by an 
acute sinus ; they evidently form an inner whorl with the fila- 
ments, and do not intervene between them. These teeth bear 
more the semblance of abortive stamens than the areolar glands; 
but the same reasoning which leads to the rejection of such a 
nature for the one will deny it,, to the other. We may with 
greater probability consider these teeth as constituting the 
margin of such an adnate disk as I have suggested, the presence 
of which is supported by much collateral evidence ; and we may 
moreover, with great reason, attribute to the existence of this 
disk the cause of the confluence of a portion of the filaments 
into a “ tubillus,” or monadelphous ring, while all the portions 
of the same filaments beyond the limit of the disk remain free. 
In Acicarpha, where the disk appears to be earned up to the ex- 
tremity of the filaments, so that they are entirely monadelphous, 
there is seen a thickening, called by Richard an “ epinema,” 
which may be conceived to be the margin of the disk, and which 
gives the anthers the appearance of being articulated upon 
the filaments ; but this does not occm- in the other genera of 
the family, where the filaments are free at their apex. 
Although in Calyceracece the corolla at length falls off from 
the summit of the apical tubercle of the seed, the fact cannot 
be denied (as was demonstrated by Richard and confirmed by 
Brown), that the tube of the corolla, in all stages, is continued 
downwards over the entire surface of that tubercle. If we cut 
through any Calyceraceous achsenium before the fall of the 
corolla, by a longitudinal section, we find that this tubercle 
consists externally of such a continuation of the corolla, lined 
with an intermediate fibrous stratum, having in the centre a 
thickish white cylindrical cord, continuous with the style, and 
all three are agglutinated into one body. It is from the bottom 
of this cord that the seed is suspended, by a short funicle, in the 
summit of the cell. This cord can neither be considered as a 
portion of the funicle, which is continuous with it, nor as a part 
of the style, although it is articulated with the latter and also 
continuous with it ; it is, in truth, the placentary development 
destined to give origin to the suspended ovule. 
