1882 .] 
433 
[Trelease. 
This species was figured and described in 1873 in the “ Botani- 
cal Magazine,” XCIX, tab. 6043, as the type of a new genus, 
Meninia, Fua. On the authority of Fua and Decaisne, by whom 
it had been analized, it is said to be absolutely diandrous, with- 
out a trace of arrested stamens. In their “ Genera Plantarum,” 
II, 1098, Bentham and Hooker state that the plant is not generi- 
cally distinct from Cystacanthus paniculatus T. Anders. In their 
description of the genus, however, they give the absence of sta- 
minodia as a character, although Anderson, in the original 
description of the genus (Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. IX, 457-8), 
distinctly mentions two rudimentary stamens ; and there can be 
no doubt of their jwesence in the plants of C. turgidus that I have 
studied. Whether they are ever absent I cannot of course say ; 
but the constancy of such secondary reproductive characters as 
the nectar guard is so marked, in species of which I have been 
able to examine many flowers, that I can scarcely believe in the 
complete suppression of the rudimentary stamens in some flowers 
of C. turgidus, knowing them to be present in others. 
Goldfussia isophy 11a (India). — In general ajipearance the co- 
rolla is like that of G. anisophylla; funnel-shaped, dilated above, 
much contracted below and bent downward about the middle of 
the tube. It is blue, veined with reddish purple. Four stamens 
are developed, and inserted in pairs on two salient ridges which 
run along the floor of the corolla near the point where it bends 
downward, fig. 48. One of each pair has a very short recurved fila- 
ment. That of the other is sufficiently long to bring the anther 
so that it can be seen from the mouth of the flower. As the 
stamens of opposite sides are similar, it results that we find a 
long pair and a short pair. Instead of being placed above the 
axis of the flower, as in Cystacanthus, the stamens are here pros- 
trate, their anthers rising from the floor of the corolla and expos- 
ing their pollen above. The style is slender, enlarging gradually 
toward the stigma and tapering again from the base of this organ 
to its point, fig. 52. From the bend in the corolla forward, it 
lies close to the bottom of the flower, between the stamens, and 
is kept in a median position by a groove of the corolla in which 
it runs for some distance. As in G. anisophylla, its union with 
the ovary is so slight, and its connection with the corolla so 
marked, that when the latter is broken or spontaneously falls off 
PROCEEDINGS D. S. N. H. VOL. XXI. 28 JANUARY, 1883 . 
