named Rafflesia. 
11 
A satisfactory determination of this point, while it would cer¬ 
tainly assist in explaining the nature of the other parts of the co¬ 
lumn, might also in some degree lead to correct notions of the 
affinities of the genus; and the question is perhaps sufficiently 
interesting, even independent of these results. 
In this inquiry, it is necessary in the first place to take a ge¬ 
neral view of the principal forms of Antherae in phaenogamous 
plants ; all of which, however different they may appear, I con¬ 
sider as modifications of one common structure. 
In this assumed regular structure or type of Anthera, I sup¬ 
pose it to consist of two parallel folliculi or tliecce, fixed by their 
whole length to the margins of a compressed filament: each theca 
being originally filled with a pulpy substance, on the surface or 
in the cells of which the pollen is produced ; and having its ca¬ 
vity divided longitudinally into two equal cells, the subdivision 
being indicated externally by a depression or furrow, which is 
also the line of dehiscence*. The 
* A certain degree of resemblance between this supposed regular state of Anthera, 
and that which in a former essay (on Composite, Linn. Soc. Transact, xii. p. 89-) 1 
have considered as the type of Pistillum in phaenogamous plants, will probably be ad¬ 
mitted ; and both structures have, as it appears to me, an evident relation to the LeaJ, 
from whose modifications all the parts of the flower seem to be formed. 
This hypothesis of the formation of the Flower may be considered as having origi¬ 
nated with Linnams in his Prolepsis Plantarum, though he has not very clearly stated 
.it, and has also connected it with other speculations, which have since been generally 
abandoned. It is, however, more distinctly proposed by Professor Link (in Philos. Bot. 
Prodr. p. 141), and very recently has been again brought forward, with some modifica¬ 
tions, by M. Aubert du Petit Thouars. 
In adopting the hypothesis as stated by Professor Link, I shall, without entering 
at present into its explanation or defence, ofler two observations in illustration of it, 
founded on considerations that have not been before adverted to. 
My first observation is, that the principal point in which the anthera and ovaria 
agree, consists in their essential parts, namely, the pollen and ovula, being produced 
on the margins of the modified leaf. 
C 2 
In 
