Page:The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.djvu/40

18  ? ros&aelig;folia, Hook. Ic. Plant, t. 581 (Ligusticum aromaticum, Banks and Sol. Ic. in Mus. Brit.), is also in some measure allied to these, though a plant of a very different habit; its calycine segments are decidedly unequal in size, and one of the two mericarps is often abortive.

In the three known species of Anisotome, all the parts connected with the inflorescence are subject to much irregular metamorphosis and monstrous development, the more important of which, as observed in the living plants of A. latifolia and A. antipoda, are the following:—1st, the segments of the partial involucra become shrivelled, assuming the forms of peduncles, and bear at their apices stylopodia with distorted calycine segments, or more perfect flowers with a reduced number of parts; or, in one case, a solitary one-celled anther, full of pollen, adnate on the face of the leaf, a little below its apex: 2nd, the peduncles themselves of the outer flowers become foliaceous, or by dividing show a tendency to a further compound state of the umbel; it also sometimes bears a single stamen at its apex, subtended by one large calycine segment: 3rd, the calycine segments vary from 2–6, but one or more are always so much larger than the others, as often to resemble involucral leaves: 4th, the petals are wanting, or vary from 1–6; sometimes two are combined into one; at others they assume various shapes: 5th, the stamens are equally variable in number; the filament is at times petaloid, or becomes forked and bears a second anther; these are constantly perfect and full of pollen: 6th, the stylopodia are always 2 or more, often 3, generally of the plane depressed form common to the male flowers; but the flowers of the ray sometimes bear 2–4 of entirely a different form, and similar to those of the fertile umbels; these are sometimes accompanied with stamens:—generally no numerical relation can be traced between the parts of these irregularly developed flowers. That such a relation however exists is demonstrable in a very distorted example, where a flower was furnished with 6 calycine segments, 3 very large and the others very small, 2 petals, 6 stamens, one of which bore two perfect anthers, and 2 stylopodia, in all 17 parts, the normal number in the ordinary state of the plant. Perhaps the most complex example was exhibited in one of the outer pedicels of a partial umbel, which was terminated by 4 stylopodia surrounded by a 5-toothed calyx, the latter subtended on one side by 4 linear, foliaceous, very imperfectly developed organs, each of them furnished at its apex with an obscure depression filled with yellow powder. It here appears to me that the apparent pedicel is the peduncle of a partial umbel bearing one sessile female flower, and that the three superadded foliaceous organs represent the pedicels of male flowers, which are reduced to as many fove&aelig; containing pollen, a most rudimentary state of the male flower. I did not observe whether the stylopodia were internal or external in relation to the axis of the plant and the three supposed male pedicels; probably however the latter, as it is the flowers of the ray which generally bear female stylopodia.

IX. & X. Fig. 1, flower; fig. 2, calyx with the petals removed; fig. 3, a petal; fig. 4. front, and 5. back view of stamens; figs. 6, 7, 8 and 9, portions of umbel and flowers distorted by monstrous development:—all magnified.   

 1. simplex, Forst.; arborea, inermis, foliis elliptico-lanceolatis subacutis obtusisve grosse serratis longe petiolatis cum petiolo articulatis (junioribus trifoliolatis), umbellis floralibus subracemosis fructiferis parce ramosis rarius simplicibus, umbellulis 6–10-floris. (Tab. XII.)—P. simplex, ''Forst. Prodr.'' n. 399. DeC. Prodr. vol. iv. p. 253. ''A. Rich. Fl. Nov. Zeland.'' p. 281. t. 31. ''A. Cunn. Prodr. Fl. Nov. Zel. in Ann. Nat. Hist.'' vol. ii. p. 213.

Lord Auckland's group; from the sea to alt. 500 feet, abundant.

A very scarce plant, and hitherto only found in the southern extremity of New Zealand and the Antarctic