of changes nearly agreeing with those which M. Mirbel[1] has described and ilustrated as taking place in other families.
In the earliest state in which I have examined the ovulum in Orchidcæ, it consists merely of a minute papilla projecting from the pulpy surface of the placenta. In the [703 next stage the annular rudiment of the future testa is visible at the base of the papilliform nucleus. The sub- sequent changes, namely, the enlargement of the testa, the production of a funiculus, which is never vascular, and the curvature or inversion of the whole ovulum, so as to approximate the apex of its nucleus to the surface of the placenta, take place in different genera at different periods with relation to the development of the other parts of the flower. In general when the flower expands, the ovulum will be found in a state and direction proper for receiving the male influence. But in several cases, as in Cypripedium and Epipactis, genera which in many other respects are nearly allied, the ovulum has not completed its inversion, nor is the nucleus entirely covered by its testa until long after expansion, and even after the pollen has been acted on by the stigma, and its tubes have penetrated into the cavity of the ovarium.
The tissue of the perfect stigmata in Orchideæ does not materially differ from that of many other families. In the early state the utriculi composing it are densely approximated, having no fluid interposed. In the more advanced but unimpregnated state, these utriculi enlarge, and are separated from each other by a copious and generally viscid secretion. The channel of the style, or stigma, whose parietes are similarly composed, undergoes the same changes. Both these states are represented in one of Mr. Bauer's plates, who however considers the more advanced stage as subsequent to impregnation.
In the advanced but still unimpregnated state of the ovarium, the upper portions, which are in continuation with the axes of the three placentæ, but do not produce
- ↑ Annal. des Soc. Nat. xvii, p. 302 ;— and in Méa. de l' Acad, des Sc de l'inslit. ix, p. 212.
