Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/127

Rh upper part of the spike; and this relation also exists in the more compound inflorescence of Ricinus, Syphonia, and Celtis, in which the order of expansion is equally inverted.

It may seem rather paradoxical to select Euphorbia as an example of the same relation; this genus being considered by Linneus, and the greater part of the botanists who have adopted his system, as having a dodecandrous hermaphrodite flower. We have already, however, I believee sufficient evidence that this supposed hermaphrodite flower is in reality formed of several monandrous male flowers surrounding a single female.

In conformity with this view of its composition, and with the relation above attempted to be established, the development of the pistillum precedes that of the stamina in many species of the genus.

It is more difficult to determine whether this order of expansion and relative position of sexes in Euphorbia be in conformity with the general rule, or an exception to it. For its faciculus of flowers may be considered as analogous either to the simple spike, and. consequently having an inverted order of expansion, as in Allium descendens, and certain species of Grevillea and Anadenia: or it may be assimilated to the compound spike, as in several species of the genus the male flowers appear to be separated into fasciculi; Rh