I have also to state, that an extensive and highly imporant [241 essay, entitled, "An Attempt to analyse Rhizantheæ by Mr. William Griffith, has been read during the present season before the Linnean Society, of which an abstract is given in the Proceedings. "From this essay I have here introduced the character of Baprla, a new genus belonging to Rafflesiaceæ; and have ventured to propose an alteration of the trivial name from Himalayana to Griffthii, in honour of the discoverer of this interesting addition to the tribe Rafflesieæ, whose species, with one exception, have names similarlv derived.
RAFFLESIACEÆ.
Char. Diff. Ord. Perianthiwm monophyllum regulare.
Corolla nulla.
Stamina: Antheræ numerosæ, simplici serie.
Ovarium: placentis pluribus polyspermis, ovulis orthotropis (sed in quibusdam reciirvatione apicis, penitus vel partim, liberi funiculi quasi anatropis).
Pericarpium indehiscens polyspermum.
Emhbryo indivisus (cum v. absque albumine).
Parasiticæ radicibus rariusve in ramis plantarum dicotyle donearum.
stages of development, and which he extends to Phænnogamous plants generally, in some respects different from that taken by M. Mirbel who considers the nucleus of the ovulum, in its earliest state, as inclosed in its coats, which gradually open until they have attained their maximum of expansion, which they again contract around the nucleus, and, at the same time, by elongating, completely inclose it. Mr. Brown, on the other hand, regards the earliest stage of the nucleus as merely a contraction taking place in the apex of a pre-existing papilla, whose surface, as well as substance, is originally uniform, and that its coats are of subsequent formation, each coat consisting, at first, merely of an annular thickening at the base of the nucleus, which, by gradual elongation, it entirely covers before impregnation takes place. "But this mode of development of the ovulum, he remarks, though very general, is not without exception; for in many, perhaps in all, Asclepiadeæ and Apocinecæ, the ovulum continues a uniform cellular tissue, exhibiting no distinction of parts until after the application of the pollen tube to a definite part of its surface, when an internal separation or included nucleus first becomes visible."— See a translation of this abstract in Aiuial. des Sc. Nat ser. 2de, torn, i, p. 369.
