658 PLANTVE JAVANICjE RARI0EES.
inclined to adopt his view. His statements respecting the structure of the pistillum are more liable to objection : he describes the ovulum as orthotropous, having the micro pyle at its lower extremity, and the embryo consequently exist- ing at the same point of the seed ; my own observations, which may indeed require to be verified, placing the em- 248] bryo at the upper extremity, or close to the insertion of the seed, the ovulum being consequently anatropous. The external structure of the pistillum is very singular. In an early stage of the flower, immediately before or even at the time of expansion, there are apparently two stigmata : of these the more obvious is capitate, undivided, fleshy, but not papillose, and is supported on a distinct style ; the second is quite sessile, much shorter in this stage than the capitate branch, and having its upper or inner surface dis- tinctly stigmatic or papillose. In the next stage, the latter, which I regard as the efficient stigma, gradually enlarges, becoming longer than the capitate organ, which in my opinion is an imperfect stigma ; and as in this stage the ovarium though enlarged has not perceptibly increased in diameter, this capitate stigma has the appearance of being lateral. The perfect stigma, which continues to lengthen, its upper surface becoming more evidently hispid or papil- lose, not unfrequently remains crowning the samara even when ripe ; but frequently also it is then deciduous, while the imperfect capitate stigma, which has undergone no change either in size or surface, more generally remains after the real stigma has fallen.
In one of the flowers of a specimen preserved in spirits by Dr. Wallich, and in which the corolla was wanting, and a slight enlargement of ovarium had taken place, I found only one ovulum, the lower extremity of which seemed in some degree to support Dr. Blume's account of the position of micropyle. In a second flower of the same specimen only one apparently perfect ovulum existed, but the funiculus or remains of a second was visible; in the perfect ovulum a more transparent point, which might possibly be micropyle, was lateral ; and in a third flower, long after fcecundation, the samara being distinctly formed though not of its full
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