THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY, BEING A SECOND SERIES OF THE BOTANICAL MISCELLANY; CONTAINING FIGURES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF SUCH PLANTS AS RECOMMEND THEMSELVES BY THEIR NOVELTY, RARITY, OR HISTORY, OR BY THE USES TO WHICH THEY ARE APPLIED IN THE ARTS, IN MEDICINE, AND IN DOMESTIC ECONOMY; TOGETHER WITH OCCASIONAL BOTANICAL NOTICES AND INFORMATION. BY WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER, LL.D., F.R. A. & L.S. AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. VOL. I. LONDON: LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN & LONGMAN; MDCCCXXXIV. [TAB. CXIII.] REMARKS ON THE GENUS FLOERKEA OF WILLDENOW. BY JOHN LINDLEY, ESQ. Professor of Botany in the London University. THE genus FLOERKEA, established by Willdenow in 1801, and adopted by all succeeding systematic botanists, except Pursh, who reduced it to Nectris, is one of which our knowledge has hitherto been extremely imperfect. Referred to Juncea by St. Hilaire, to Hydrocharidea by Reichenbach, to the vicinity of Portulacea by Nuttall in his Genera of North American Plants, afterwards, by the same author, to the neighbourhood of Crucifera, and finally altogether omitted by Bartling, it has remained a kind of botanical puzzle, which no one has been able to explain. Having been recently favoured by Dr. Torrey with very complete specimens, both in flower and fruit, I find the structure so much at variance with that which is usually assigned to it, as to deserve to be made generally known. To criticise the characters by which it has been hitherto defined, would be only to enumerate a series of misconceptions or omissions that have arisen from the minuteness and delicacy of its parts. A more agreeable task will be to describe the fructification, as I have found it myself. FLOERKEA. ALABASTRI calyx herbaceus, monophyllus, trifidus, æstivatione valvata; laciniis erectis, intus striis acicularibus notatis ; petala tria, minuta, membranacea, disco carnoso perigyno inserta, uninervia; stamina 6, in eadem disco inserta, 3 sepalis opposita petalis æqualia, 3 petalis opposita multo breviora; filamenta subulata, flava; antheræ subrotundæ, biloculares, longitudinaliter dehiscentes; ovarium superum, trilobum, lobis calycis laciniis oppositis; stylus filiformis, lobis ovarii vix longior; stigma trifidum; ovula solitaria, ascendentia. FLORIS EXPANSI calyx 3-partitus, laciniis ovatis acuminatis ; SECOND SERIES. stamina omnia subæqualia, patentia; discus fere obliteratus; stylus staminibus æqualis; cæteræ partes immutatæ. FRUCTUS calyx persistens, laciniis patentissimis, paulo amplificatis; achenia 2-3, oblonga, tuberculata; pericarpium coriaceum; semina cavitatem totam replentia; embryo oblongus, exalbuminosus, cotyledonibus plano-convexis, radicula intra bases cotyledonum inclusa, hilo proxima, plumula conica, conspicua. Such being the essential structure of this plant, while it is obvious that it cannot be referred to any of the Natural Orders in which it has actually been placed, or to which it has been approximated, it is equally certain that it is by no means easy to say to what it really belongs. In habit, it possesses so few characteristic marks, that one can scarcely draw any inference from it. Ranunculacea are perhaps those, certain species of which, it most resembles, and its apocarpous fruit would be in a slight degree corroborative of such an association; but the structure of the calyx, the perigynous disk, and the absence of albumen, will not permit us to place it even in their neighbourhood. It may also be compared with Geraniacea in some points, such as the deep lobes of the ovarium, with monospermous cells, and the want of albumen; but it is destitute of all tendency to a monadelphous state of the stamens, it has nothing like a gynophore with a central axis, and its seeds are altogether different, not to speak of its perigynous disk. Many other Orders might also be selected, with which points of agreement might be established. But it seems to me that Sanguisorbeæ are the plants among which, or in the neighbourhood of which, Floerkea must take its place. They agree, to a certain extent, in habit: that is, many Sanguisorbed are inconspicuous, procumbent, herbaceous plants, with divided leaves; both have definite stamens arising from a perigynous disk; if Floerkea has its styles united almost to the apex, Sanguisorbeæ have unilocular monospermous carpella, with the styles proceeding occasionally from their base, so that they only differ in an adhesion of the styles: in Sanguisorbeæ we have seeds always originating at the point where the style quits the ovarium, and an exalbuminous embryo with plano-convex cotyledons, all which equally exist in Floerkea. On the other hand, if we inquire into the differences that exist between this plant and the Order to which I have suggested that it may be referred, we find that they consist, firstly, in the absence of stipules; secondly, in the presence of petals; thirdly, in the tube of the calyx not becoming indurated; and, finally, in those stamens, which are opposite the sepals, being the most developed-the reverse of what occurs in Sanguisorbeæ. But in Rosacea, of which many would have the latter to be a part, although an Order in which stipules are usually highly developed, they are absent in Spiraea, &c.; the presence of petals in the rudimentary state in which they exist in Floerkea, would rather confirm its affinity with an apetalous Order, than its relation to one in which the petals are habitually perfect: just as in Amaranthacea, Illecebrea, Euphorbiaceae, and the like, where similar appearances occur; the want of induration in the tube of the calyx is probably due to the absorption of the disk, in this genus, at a very early period, and may be regarded as a specific character rather than as one affecting its ordinal position; and, finally, the presence of petals may be supposed to explain the cause of those stamens, which are alternate with the sepals, being the least, instead of the most, developed, as is usual in apetalous Sanguisorbeæ. TAB. CXIII. Fig. 1, A flower-bud. Fig. 2, The same, cut open, showing the structure at this period before the disk is absorbed. Fig. 3, The pistillum of the same. Fig. 4, A stamen. Fig. 5, A petal. Fig. 6, An expanded flower. Fig. 7, An ovulum, with a lacerated portion of the pericarpium adhering to it. Fig. 8, The pistillum of the expanded flower. Fig. 9, The calyx, in fruit. Fig. 10, A section of the achenium, at right angles with the cotyledons. Fig. 11, A section of the seed, parallel with the cotyledons:-all highly magnified. |