146 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY, 
formed of the usual condueting-tissue combined with pollinic 
boyaux) descends from the united styles through an aperture in 
the apex of the cell of the ovary, and fixes itself upon the micro- 
pyle of the ovule, by which means it becomes fecundated in the 
same direct manner as in the Gnetaceee. Griffiths also remarks* 
that he could not detect any conducting-tissue in the wall of the 
ovarium leading from the stigmata to the base of the cell in 
Chenopodium ; he saw distinctly, however, pollinic boyaux at- 
tached to the micropyle of its ovule, which could have had no 
other means of ingress into the cell except directly from the 
base of the very short style. As before mentioned, we find a 
similar mode of direct communication between the stigma and 
the ovules in Olacacece and Styracece, where the latter are sus- 
pended from a free central placenta, or rather ovuligerous co- 
lumn, the apex of which frequently enters into the broad hollow 
space in the base of the style ; by this means the ovules appear 
to receive the pollinic influence immediately through the open 
channel of the style. A similar perforation in the apex of the 
cell of the ovary into the hollow style is seen in all the Thyme- 
leacecE ; and this is manifested in Cansjera, where the ovules are 
fixed on parietal carinal projections, leaving open channels which 
extend nearly to the summit of the style. Griffiths gives other 
similar instances in Sanialum, Osyris, and Loranthus, where he 
traced t the pollen-tubes from the stigmata, in a direct course 
through the style into the cell of the ovary, and in contact with 
the apex of the embryo-sac in the nucleus of the ovule. It was 
moreover shown long ago by Endlicher j;, and since confirmed by 
Dr. Weddel, in his admirable monograph of the Urticacea, that 
in that family the micropyle of its basal atropal ovule attains the 
summit of its 1 -locular cell, where it meets with the stigmatic 
tissue pi’otruding from an opening in the base of the style, and 
where it becomes firmly attached, as already I’elated of Statics. 
These are cases perfectly analogous to what occurs in the Gne- 
tacecs, and yet no one has ventured to designate the germs so 
immediately impregnated in those instances as naked or gymno- 
spermous ovules. So likewise in Piperacea, Schnitzlein has 
demonstrated § that the ovary of Peperomia has an open channel 
in its apex contiguous to its sessile stigma, and that the micro- 
pyle of its erect atropous ovule is found in immediate proximity 
to that foramen, exactly as in Ephedra and Gnetura. In Myrica, 
also, a similar structure exists. 
In a paper shortly to be published on South-American Ana- 
cardiacecB, it will be shown that in every genus I have examined 
* Notulae, p. 169, pi. 52. figs. 13-20. 
t Linn. Trans, xix. 173. 
§ Iconographia, pi. 81. fig. 17. 
J Gen. Plant, p. 283. 
