common opinion, may be reduced to three. 1st. Were the common opinion admitted, the difficulty of conceiving so wide a difference in what he terms insertion of Stamina, in two orders so nearly related as Campanulaceæ and Stylideæ obviously are: 2dly. The alleged non-existence of the Stigma, which preceding authors had described as terminating the column: and lastly the manifest existence of another part, which, both from its appearance and supposed origin is considered as capable of performing the function of that organ.
In opposition to these arguments it may be observed, that the real origin of the Stamina is in both orders the same, the apparent difference arising simply from their accretion to the female organ in Stylideæ, a tendency to which may be said to exist in Lobelia. The inability to detect the Stigma terminating the column in Stylidium must have arisen from the imperfection of the specimens examined, for in the recent state, in which this organ is even more obvious than in Goodenoviæ at the time of bursting of the antheræ, it could not have escaped so accurate an observer as Richard; and were it even less manifest in Stylidium, its existence would be sufficiently confirmed from the strict analogy of that genus with Levenhookia, whose stigma, also terminating the column, consists of two long capillary laciniæ, which are in no stage concealed by the antheræ.
With respect to the part considered as Stigma by Richard, I have formerly observed that it is obsolete in some species of Stylidium and entirely wanting in others,[1] and there is certainly no trace of any thing analogous to it in Forstera.
The greater part of the Australian Stylideæ exist at the western extremity of the principal parallel, several species are found at the eastern extremity of the same parallel, and a few others occur both within the tropic and in Van Diemen's Island. Beyond Terra Australis very few plants of this order have been observed; two species of Stylidium, very similar to certain intratropical species of New Holland, were found in Ceylon and Malacca by Kœnig; and of the only two known species of Forstera, one is a native of New Zealand, the other of Terra del Fuego, and the opposite coast of Patagonia.
- ↑ Bauer illustr. tab. 5.
