1-celled, I have rarely found divided into two cells by a more or less thickened septum. Two bundles of vessels, one from each of the arms of the style, meet in the column and traverse its length; at the summit of the ovarium they sometimes again divide, and as separate cords enter its cavity, meeting again in the central column which bears the placentæ.
The last circumstance to which I shall here allude concerns the inflorescence of these species of Stylidiæ. In one of Mr. Bidwill's specimens of F. sedifolia from the mountain of Tongariro, in the Northern Island of New Zealand, the peduncle is 2-flowered, and the position of the bracts on the pedicels, and at the base of the ovaria, shows their true situation and the nature of the inflorescence to be the same in Forstera as in many Stylidia. This two-flowered specimen has six bracts, two of which are placed at the forking of the peduncle, one situated upon and belonging to each of the pedicels; but the other four form two pairs, each pair placed immediately at the base of the ovarium. In the solitary and sessile-flowered species it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the bracts from the upper leaves; in F. clavigera however they are sufficiently distinct, but never more than two, nor in P. uliginosa are there probably more, though they gradually pass into the ordinary forms of the leaf. In the latter plant some foliaceous expansions, which are generally considered as segments of the calyx, are often placed upon the germen; I have not remarked how they are disposed upon distinctly fertile ovaria of this species; where however that organ is imperfectly developed, it may be readily understood how a little irregularity in the insertion either of the calycine lobes or bracts might lead to the one being mistaken for the other.
Plate XXVIII. Fig. 1, branch of F. clavigera with an expanded plicate corolla, and the arms of the style developed; figs. 2 and 3, cauline leaves from the same; fig. 4, flower with the segments of the corolla even and plane; fig. 5, a portion of a corolla from fig. 1; fig. 6, ovarium and epigynous glands; fig. 7, column with perfect anthers; fig. 8, longitudinal section of the same; fig. 9, pollen from the same; fig. 10, anthers after the pollen has escaped; fig. 11, column with stigmata and imperfect anthers; fig. 12, transverse section of 1-celled ovarium ; fig. 13, longitudinal section of 2-celled do.; fig. 14, immature seeds:—all magnified.
XVII. LOBELIACEÆ, Juss.
1. PRATIA, Gaud.
Calycis tubus ovatus v. obovatus, rarius obconicus, lobis 5 ovatis acutis superioribus paulo longioribus. Corolla subcampanulata, longitudinaliter fissa, unilabiata, lobis subæqualibus elongato-ovatis. Antheræ 2, inferiores apice setis paucis terminatæ. Stigma bilobum, lobis extus puberulis. Fructus indehiscens, baccatus, bilocularis, carnosus, v. membranaceus, polyspermus.—Herbæ parvæ, glabræ, repentes, Australes et Antarcticæ, succo aqueo; ramis radicantibus divaricatim ramosis. Folia alterna. Pedunculi solitarii, nudi, v. bracteolati.
1. Pratia arenaria, Hook. fil.; glaberrima, subcarnosa, foliis breviter petiolatis ovato- v. obovato-rotundatis undulatis marginibus obtuse sinuato-dentatis, floribus immaturis in axillis foliorum sessilibus, fructibus brevissime pedunculatis globosis purpureis. (Tab. XXIX.)
Hab. Lord Auckland's group; creeping over the open sandy shores of Enderby's Islet, Rendezvous Harbour: Lieut. H. Oakeley.
Caules elongati, 4–7 uncias longi, crassi, carnosi, diametro pennæ gallinæ, teretes, divaricatim ramosi, ramis paucis patentibus repentibus ad axillas foliorum inferiorum fibras crassas emittentibus. Folia remota, subsemiunciam longa, distantia, horizontaliter patentia, v. ascendentia, circumscriptione plus minusve rotundata, plerumque concava, undulata, carnosa, in petiolum latum brevem 2 lin. longum contracta, ¾ unc. lata, paulo
