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 278 OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURAL FAMILY

But a fact, which I do not find any where observed, respecting the inflorescence of certain species of Scabiosa, particularly succisa and atropurjmrea, is not so easily reconcilable with the compound spike : in these, and I have reason to think in many other species of the genus, the expansion begins simultaneously at the base and middle of the capitulum, proceeding regularly upwards from both points. Were this the case in all Scabiosae, the com- pound nature of the spike in Dipsacese, although by no means proved, might be considered not improbable : there are, however, several species of the genus in which the order of expansion is altogether that of the simple spike.

Connected with the subject of inflorescence, I may remark that priority of development, whether among simi- lar parts in the same flower or the different flowers of the same spike, is generally accompanied with greater per- fection of these parts or flowers, and apparently with greater power of resisting the ordinary causes of abortion or obliteration.

I have formerly 1 observed respecting several natural families of plants, in which the stamina are in a deter- 98] minate number, but a number subject to reduction, that this reduction, where the flower is of a regular form, takes place in the same order in each natural family. Thus in Juncece, which are generally hexandrous, the triandrous species have their stamina constantly placed opposite to the three outer leaves of the perianthium, while in Restiacese, Asphodeleae, and 1 believe in a great part of the regular- flowered Liliaceae, in certain species of which a similar reduction occurs, the stamina in the triandrous species are placed opposite to the inner leaves or segments of the perianthium. But in both cases the greater perfection of those stamina that exist in genera or species reduced to the smallest number, is indicated, where there is no reduction, by the earlier bursting of their antherse ; so that from this circumstance the order of reduction or abortion of stamina

1 In Prodr. Flor. Kov. Holl. vol. i, and Appendix to Flinders's Voyage to Terra Australis [vol. i, p. 52].

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