may here advert to the remarkable monstrosity in the flowers of an Ophrys described and figured by M. His[1] upwards of two years before the appearance of my Prodromus. This account I did not meet with till after that part of the volume relating to Orchideæ was printed; and I have here only to observe respecting it, that neither the monstrosity itself, consisting of the conversion into stamina of the three inner divisions of the perianthium, nor the author's speculation founded on it, has any connection with my opinion which relates to the processes of the column.
M. His's paper, however, and the remarkable structure of Epistephium of M. Kunth, have together given rise to a third hypothesis, whose author, M. Achille Richard,[2] considers an Orchideous flower as generally deprived of the outer series of the perianthium, which is present only in Epistephium. He consequently regards the existing inner series of perianthium, or that to which the labellum belongs, as formed of metamorphosed stamina.
This hypothesis, although apparently sanctioned by the structure of Scitamineæ, I consider untenable; the external additional part in Epistephium, which I have examined, appearing to me rather analogous to the calyculus in some Santalaceæ, in a few Proteaceæ, and perhaps to that of Loranthaceæ.
With reference to the support the hypothesis may [699 derive from the monstrosity described by M. His, I may add that I have met with more than one case of similar conversion into stamina of the inner series of the perianthium, or at least of its two lateral divisions, with a manifest tendency to the same change in the labellum: and in one of these cases, namely Neottia picta, in addition to the conversion of the two lateral divisions of the perianthium, the lateral processes of the column were also completely developed.
The next point examined was the composition of the Stigma with the relation of its lobes or divisions to the other parts of the flower, and especially to the supposed compo-
