ON THE PROTEACEiE OF JUSSIEU. 7
also to have been chiefly guided by this analogy and the observations of others ; as he concludes by expressing his doubts, respecting both the origin and use of the parts.
Richard, whose description of these organs I find in Persoon's Synopsis, has indeed come nearer to the solu- tion of the question ; his account, however, of the origin of the lateral processes hereafter mentioned, proves that this description was not altogether formed on actual observa- tion.
Jacquin, the first botanist that submitted these plants to minute examination, and whose figures well illustrate most points of their structure, has adopted a very different opinion, referring them to Gynandria, in which he is fol- lowed by Koelreuter, Rottboell, and Cavanilles, all of whom likewise agree with him in considering them as decandrous ; while Dr. Smith, in his late valuable Introduction to Botany, who conceives that " no plants can be more truly gynandrous," regards them as having only five antherae. And lastly Desfontaines supposes the five glands of the stigma to be the true antherse, considering the attached masses of pollen as mere appendages to these.
All the authors who thus refer them to Gynandria seem quite confident in the justness of their views ; and yet the inspection of a single flower bud overturns, as it appears to me, with irresistible evidence, the conclusion they had formed from premises apparently so satisfactory.
My attention, while in New Holland, having been much engaged by the plants of this family, the species in that [is continent being both numerous and with difficulty reducible to established genera : I there observed the following facts concerning them, all of which I have, since my return to England, confirmed by the examination of different species of the same tribe.
The observations of Jacquin on this subject being gene- rally known, it must be unnecessary to enter into a minute description of those organs which are well exhibited by his figures in every respect, except as to the origin of the sup- posed antherae.
If a flower bud of any plant of this family, while scarcely
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