Ewart. — On the Staminal Hairs of Thesium. 279 
Morphological value of the staminal hairs. — Very little has 
been published about the nature of these peculiar staminal 
hairs in Thesium ; it has been observed that they are fre- 
quently attached to the back of the anthers, and in some 
closely allied genera, e. g. Leptomeria , the hairs are said to 
actually penetrate the loculi of the anther and to emerge 
on the other side. Some authors considered them to be 
part of the androecium, but Bentham and Fenzl maintained 
that they originated as an outgrowth from the perianth. 
A. De Candolle mentions some cases in which the hairs 
were not joined to the anthers (e. g. in Osyris), but he could 
find no case in which they were not attached to the perianth, 
and therefore confirms Bentham and Fenzl’s view. He con- 
siders that they originate in the first place at the point of 
insertion of the stamen on the perianth, and that they become 
separated from the stamen later ; in proof of this he instances 
the fact that in the female flowers of Osyris, which have no 
stamens, the hairs are absent, and appears to consider the 
development of stamens necessary for their production. 
Reissek describes and figures a monstrous species of Thesium 
in which the stamens had become transformed into buds ; 
the hairs were present at the base, as usual, but were not 
connected in any way with them, and this he argues demon- 
strates their independent origin. 
By tracing the development of these staminal hairs and 
comparing sections taken through them in various directions, 
it seems to me that they are merely modified cells of the 
perianth which have become enormously elongated, and in 
the first series of species where the hairs are short and bend 
downwards towards the base of the style, they obviously 
have no direct connection with the stamen. The position 
of the hairs frequently near the throat of the perianth-tube 
and opposite the perianth-segments renders it highly probable 
that they do not represent a rudimentary corolla, as has been 
suggested ; and they are rather to be regarded merely as 
emergences from the perianth. 
Before considering the function of these peculiar structures, 
U 
