Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 10.djvu/53

 Rh, and consists in the anthera, or rather that portion of the filament on which it is fixed, adhering to the calyx through its whole length.

The figure of the has been attended to by a few theoretical, but by hardly any practical botanists; yet I am inclined to think, not only from its consideration in this family, but in many others, that it may be consulted with advantage in fixing our notions of the limits of genera: and though its minuteness may perhaps always exclude it from a place in generic characters, yet it well deserves, to use the words of Linnæus when speaking of habit, to be "occulte consulendum."

Its usual figure in the order is triangular with secreting angles, a beautiful contrivance for insuring impregnation in a tribe, in which, from the very scanty, or in many cases apparent want of secretion by the stigma, it must otherwise have been very uncertain; for by this form and secretion, as well as by the singular œconomy of the calyx, it remains so long in contact with the stigma, as probably to compensate for the somewhat defective structure of that organ.

From this figure the principal deviation is in the extensive genera Banksia and Josephia, in all of which it is elliptical or oblong, and either straight or bent into a semilunar form; and in Franklandia and Aulax, where it is spherical. The only remaining exception with which I am acquainted is the original Embothrium of Forster, his E. coccineum, in which, as in Banksia, it is oblong; a circumstance that, together with the more important character of a regular club-shaped stigma, and some other differences, has determined me to separate it from all the other species of Embothrium, except E. lanceolatum of Flora Peruviana, whose pollen however remains to be examined.

The external modification of the must be very