OF CENTRAL AFllICA. 299
into liis ' Species Plaiitarum/ and referred to Ilvpoxis, solely on the authority of the figure published iu Dr. Russell's 'History of Aleppo.' In the ]]anksian Herbarium I have examined part of the original si)ecimen of this species, found by Dr. Alexander llusselb and figured l)y Ehret in the work referred to, as well as more perfect speciuiens collected by Dr. Patrick Russell ; and am satisfied that its ovarium is not in any degree adherent to the tube of the pcrianthium. I find also that Hypoxis fascicularis differs from Colchicum merely in having a simple unilocular ovarium, with a single parietal placenta and an undivided style, instead of the compound trilocular ovarium, with dis- tinct or partially united styles, common to all the other sections of that genus.
A reduction, as in this case, to the solitary simple pistil- lum,' though existing in all Graminea) and in certain genera of several other families of ^lonocotyledones, is yet comparatively rare in that primary division of phaenogamous plants, and in the great class Liliacea3, the present species of Colchicum oft'ers, I believe, the only known example. [213 Yet this remarkable character is here so little influential, if I may so speak, that Hypoxis fascicularis very closely resembles some states of Colchicum Ritchii, and in the Banksian herbarium has actually been confounded with another species of the first or trigynous section of the genus.
To the first section, which includes Colchicum BitcJtii,
^ The late celebrated M, Ricliard, i 11 his excellent 'Analyse du Fruit/ in pointing out the distinctions between a simple and compound periearpium, produces that of Mclanthacccc as an example of the compound, in opposition to that of Commelinea3 or of Juncere, Avhich, though erpially multilocular, lie considers as simple, A knowledge of the structure of Colchicum Monocarynm would, no doubt, have confirmed him in his opinion respecting Mclantiiaccaj.
It has always appeared to nic surprising that a carpologist so ])rofonnd as !M, llichard, and whose notions of the comi)Osition of true dissepiments, and even of the analogy in placcntation between multilocular and unilocular pcri- carpia, were, in a great degree, erpially correct and original, should never have arrived at the knowledge of the common type of the organ or simple pistillum, to which all fruits, whether unilocular or multilocular, were reducible; and that he should, in the instance now cited, liavc attempted to distinguish into simple anil compound two modifications of the latter so manifestly analogous, and which dilfer from each other only in the degree of coalescence of their component parts.
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