Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/173

Rh impregnated; it is still possible to conceive a case in which a ripe seed may be considered as truly naked while retaining; its attachment to the parent plant; and this not subsequent to germination, but even preceding the formation of the embryo. For if we suppose, as the immediate effect of impregnation, a swelling of the ovulum without a corresponding enlargement of the ovarium, the consequence will obviously be a premature rupture of the ovarium, and the production of a seed provided with its proper integuments only.

I am not aware that such an economy has hitherto been described; I have observed it, however, in several plants belonging to very different families, and of essentially different structures.

The first of these is Leontice thalictroides of Linneus, Caulophyllum thalictroides of Michaux, who has founded his new genus on a difference of fruit, the nature of which he has entirely misunderstood. It is remarkable that its real structure should have escaped so accurate an observer as M. Richard, through whose hands it is generally understood Michaux's work passed previous to its publication; but the fact may at least serve to show how entirely unexpected such an economy must have been even to that excellent carpologist.

My observations were made in the summer of 1812, on a plant of Leontice thalictroides, which flowered and ripened fruit in the royal gardens at Kew. An examination of the unimpregnated ovarium proved it to be in every respect of the same structure with that of the other species of Leontice; and essentially the same with the whole order of Berberides, to which this genus belongs. A careful inspection of the fruit, in different states, proved also that the "Drupa stipitata" of Michaux is in reality a naked seed, that in a very early stage had burst its pericarpium, Rh