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contained perfect stigmata; in it the style branched into two capitate arms, pubescent externally, and in
all respects analogous to the stigmata of the former plant ; the ovary was however in so very young a state,
th a t I could not detect any concomitant character in the ovules ; the anthers were decidedly abortive. In
F. sedifolia, L., I have seen no other stigmata than two small uncinate fleshy bodies, concealed between the
two upper valves of the anthers, parallel with them, and alternating with two small glands ? at the back of these
organs. In form and situation they answer to the plumose stigmas of the two former, but they are smooth
throughout. In another flower I find the apex of the style to be depressed and to appear minutely 4-lobed,
with the lobes unequal and rounded ; in both these cases the anthers were fitll of pollen, and the ovules in a
rudimentary state. In Swartz's description of this plant he notices a crest of projecting hairs, arising from a
fleshy septum, obscurely lobed under the microscope, which connects the two anthers and separates the two
lobes of the true apex of the style or stigmas. Swartz distinctly alludes to the two small glands or stigmata
as being protected by the upper valves of the anthers, and they are hence probably analogous to two of the four
lobes into which, in the flower I examined, the apex of the style appeared to be divided. Swartz’s supposition,
th a t the septum and crista of fine hairs form a connectivum between the anthers, separating the stigmata, appears
to me to indicate a most anomalous condition of those parts ; and as it is, from its position and structure, analogous
to the arms of the style and stigmata in the two former species, I conclude that th a t author examined fertile
flowers of F. sedifolia. It is still more remarkable that so acute and very accurate an observer should have been
unable to detect tbe glands at the base of the column, which in both my specimens arc exceedingly large, and
project upwards like two horns from the top of the ovarium for half the length and upwards of the tube of the
corolla, and whose apices in the young state of the flower lie between the anthers. It is possible that they may
be obscurely developed in fertile flowers of this species, which however is not the case in those of F . clavigera
or of Phyllachne uliginosa.
l a F. clavigera there are apparently two very different states of the corolla : in many of my specimens of
this plant that organ is divided into 5-7 lobes, all of them concave and even, of the same thickness throughout ;
more rarely they are 4 or 9 ; but in other corollas taken from the same specimens the divisions are undulated,
with the borders of the sinuses much thickened, and each of them furnished at the throat with two linear, elevated,
divaricating ridges or glands, which branch off from the middle nerve in the upper part of the tube, and are
abruptly clavate at the extremity, near the margin of the segment, with whose thickened margins they sometimes
unite. In some respects they resemble the nectaries of Ranunculus pinguis (Tab. I.), being only occasionally
present ; they however contain no secretion. Though I could trace no connection between this, the common
form of the corolla, and the fertile or abortive state of the ovarium, I may remark, that where the segments are
smooth and even, the apex of the style is hardly prominent or visible between the anthers, and also that in the
most divided corollas the segments were most undulated and thickened ; in F. sedifolia they are also very
distinct, though nowhere described that I am aware of ; and they are also evident, but not so fully developed, in
the few flowers of Phyllachne which I have examined. I have also described the corolla as somewhat two-lipped,
a character not very evident in all instances, and depending upon the inequality and comparative size of the
segments ; one or two are almost invariably larger than the rest, and external in æstivation ; when there are two
large lobes they are placed near one another ; and when the corolla has more than five segments, these two are
subdivided into four by short sinuses ; where only four segments exist, it is caused by the union of two of the
small lobes.
All the species have the anthers spuriously 2-celled, by means of a thick fleshy ridge which runs at the
base of the anther, between the valves, and projects half-way across the cavity. After the dehiscence of these
organs, they together form a cross placed horizontally on the top of the column, from their unsymmetrical contraction
; of these, the lower one on each side projects horizontally and forms a right angle with the axis of the
column, its two lower lobes approximating below ; the upper becomes erect, and its upper margin being revolute,
meets that of the opposite anther ; this appearance is represented at fig. 10. Ih e ovary, which is generally
1 -celled, I have rarely found divided into two cells by a more or less thickened septum. Two bundles of vessels,
one from each of the arms of the style, meet in the column and traverse its length ; a t the summit of the ovarium
they sometimes again divide, and as separate cords enter its cavity, meeting again in the central column whicli
bears the placentoe.
The last circumstance to which I shall here allude concerns the inflorescence of these species of Stylidieoe.
In one of Mr. Bidwill's specimens of F. sedifolia from the mountain of Tongariro, in the Northern Island of
New Zealand, the peduncle is 2-flowered, and the position of the bracts on the pedicels, and at the base of the
ovaria, shows their true situation and the nature of the inflorescence to be the same in Forstera as in many
Stylidia. This two-flowered specimen has six bracts, two of which are placed a t the forking of the peduncle,
one situated upon and belonging to each of the pedicels ; but the other four form two pairs, each pair placed immediately
at the base of the ovarium. In the solitary and sessile-flowered species it is sometimes difficult to distinguish
the bracts from the upper leaves ; in F. clavigera however they are sufficiently distinct, but never more
than two, nor in P. uliginosa are there probably more, though they gradually pass into the ordinary forms of the
leaf. In the latter plant some foliaceous expansions, which are generally considered as segments of the calyx,
are often placed upon the germen ; I have not remarked how they are disposed upon distinctly fertile ovaria of
this species ; where however th a t organ is imperfectly developed, it may be readily understood how a little
irregularity in the insertion either of the calycine lobes or bracts might lead to the one being mistaken for the
other.
Plate XXVIII. Fig. 1, branch o f F. clavigera with an expanded plicate corolla, and the arms of the style
developed ; figs. 2 and 3, cauline leaves from the same ; fig. 4, flower with the segments o f the corolla even and
plane ; fig. 5, a portion of a corolla from fig. 1 ; fig. 6, ovarium and epigynous glands ; fig. 7, column with perfect
anthers ; fig. 8, longitudinal section of the same ; fig. 9, pollen from the same ; fig. 10, anthers after the
pollen has escaped ; fig. 11, column with stigmata and imperfect anthers ; fig. 12, transverse section o f 1-celled
ovarium ; fig. 13, longitudinal section of 2-celled do. ; fig. 14, immature seeds :—all magnified.
XVII. LOBELIACEÆ, Juss.
1. P R A T IA , Gaud.
Calycis tubus ovatus v. obovatus, rarius obconicus, lobis 5 ovatis acutis superioribus paulo longioribus.
Corolla subcampanulata, longitudinaliter fissa, unilabiata, lobis subæqualibus elongato-ovatis. Antheræ 2, inferiores
apice setis paucis terminate. Stigma bilobum, lobis extus puberulis. Fructus indehiscens, baccatus,
bilocularis, carnosus, v. membranaceus, polyspermus.—Herbæ/íarfí?, glabræ, repentes, Australes et Antarcticoe,
succo aqueo ; ramis radicantibus divaricatim ramosis. Folia alterna. Pedunculi solitarii, nudi, v. bracteolati.
1. P r a t i a arenaria. Ho o k . fil. ; g lab errima , sub carn o sa, foliis b rev ite r p e tio la tis ovato- v. ob-
o v a to -ro tu n d a tis u n d u la tis m a rg in ib u s o b tu se s in u a to -d en ta tis , floribus im m a tu ris in axillis foliorum
sessilibus, fru c tib u s brevissime p ed u n cu la tis globosis p u rp u ré is. (T a b . X X IX .)
H a b . L o rd A u ck lan d ’s g ro u p ; c reep in g over th e o p en s an d y shores o f E n d e rb y ’s Is le t, R e n dezvous
H a rb o u r : L ie u t. H . Oakeley.
Caules elongati, 4-7 uncias longi, crassi, carnosi, diametro pennæ gallinæ, teretes, divaricatim ramosi,
ramis paucis patentibus repentibus ad axillas foliorum inferiorum fibras crassas emittentibus. Folia remota, sub-
seraiunciam longa, distantia, horizontaliter patentia. v. ascendentia, circumscriptione plus minusve rotundata.
plerumque concava, ondulata, carnosa, in petiolum latum brevem 2 lin. longum contracta, | unc. lata, paulo
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