184 Johnson . — On the Nursing of the Embryo 
The Male Flower. 
The material at my disposal contained no male flowers. 
They are described, with illustrations, in the Flora Ant- 
arctica \ 
The Female Flower. 
The gynaeceum of M. punctulatum is essentially similar to 
that of other Santalaceous genera in that the ovary is inferior, 
unilocular, and contains a central placenta on which are three 
pendulous ovules. The floor of the ovary is depressed, forming 
three pouches, one for each ovule, so pronounced that several 
transverse sections of a flower may be made in each of which 
the ovary will appear trilocular. The placenta is short and 
occupies only the upper third of the flower, to which region 
the ovarian cavity also is limited (Fig. 4). Further the 
placenta is, practically, not free (Fig. 4). Its long pointed 
conical apex fits closely to the ovary- wall, just as closely as 
does the base of the seta of a moss sporogonium to the 
surface of the vaginula of a moss-plant. This, at first sight, 
trivial distinction is of considerable importance in reality, the 
condition is only one step short of that found on the one 
hand in many Loranthaceae, and on the other in many Balano- 
phoraceae. In those genera, of these two orders, in which 
a central papilla is present, this is at first quite free ; later, in 
most cases, in contact with the surface of the ovary as in 
Myzodendron , and in the end fused with the ovary wall so 
as to form with it a solid mass of tissue 2 . The ovules are 
pendulous from the placenta at a point equally distant from 
its apex and its base. Each one is slightly bent on itself, and 
may be described as semi-anatropous or semi-campylotropous 
(Fig. 5). Owing to the peculiar shape of the embryo-sac 
which is that of a retort, the result, so far as the position 
of the radicle of the future embryo is concerned, is the same 
as if the ovule were an anatropous pendulous one. 
The ovule, just visible to the naked eye, is not, as is sup- 
1 J. D. Hooker, op. cit. p. 291. 
2 Eichler, Bliithendiagramme, p. 545. 
