Helen M. Armour. 
50 
thick, club-shaped staminal scale inserted on a massive ovary and 
almost at right angles to it (Fig. 6). This scale bears a pair of 
pollen sacs on either side (Fig. 8), and has usually been described 
as a single stamen. The ovary is large compared even with that of 
C. officinalis. In all species the stigma is tufted, and in mature 
specimens is shrivelled and withered. 
The vascular supply to the flower in C. chinensis consists of a 
small bundle for the bract, and one large and two small vascular 
strands which pass from the axis into the flower (Fig. 10). The 
large bundle,'which lies between the other two, traverses the median 
lobe of the staminal scale. The two small bundles, which enter 
the two lateral lobes, give off each a branch. These two branches 
soon fuse to form the single strand which supplies the ovary and 
traverses it up to the base of the ovule. C. officinalis also has three 
bundles supplying the staminal scale. The ovary supply, however, 
is derived directly from the vascular strands of the axis along with 
the staminal strands, and in several cases it consisted of more than 
one bundle. Usually the extra bundles are very small and difficult 
to determine in the earlier stages, but they were shown clearly in 
some of the ripening fruits. C. brachystachys, on the other hand, 
in addition to the single strand passing into the bract, shows six 
bundles entering the flower (Fig. 11). Two of these pass into the 
staminal scale and are at first quite separate, but just at the narrow 
insertion of the scale on the ovary they come close together for a 
short space (Fig. 8) and then diverge again to remain distinct up to 
the tip of the scale. The remaining four bundles enter the bulky 
ovary and there increase to six, two of these supplying the ovule, 
while the others run in the wall of the ovary. 
Payer 1 found in the early stages of the development of 
C. inconspicuus that the median lobe of the staminal scale appears 
first, and that this is soon followed by the two lateral ones. These 
lobes are distinct in origin, but they immediately join to form the 
three-lobed scale. After some time, the pistil arises as a half-moon 
shaped outgrowth, whose convex side is towards the bract. As 
growth proceeds, the pistil forms a continuous ring of tissue whose 
edge is more raised on the anterior side. 
The development of the pollen sac and pollen presented no 
unusual features. There was the typical division of the pollen 
mother cells into four, and the rounding off of the pollen grains, 
this process keeping pace with the development of the ovule. The 
anther lobe opens by a longitudinal slit. Numerous oil cells are 
1 Payer. “ Traite d’organogenie de la fleur,” p. 422. 
