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facts detailed by Payer and augmented and emended by Briosi and Tognini. It also,
the writer believes, is in strict accordance with the histological details given by these authors.
The two carpels are innerved by the two opposite lateral traces in the pedicel (PLATE 3,
figs. 1-7, β.γ.), the external, lateral trace innerving the anterior, external, sterile
carpel, the internal lateral innerving the posterior, internal, fertile carpel. It is noteworthy
how closely the nervature of the two carpels accords with the nervature of the involv-
ing bract which is innerved by the companion anterior trace (PLATE 3, figs. 1-6, α).
All three, immediately after entering their respective leaves, give off two strong sub-
horizontal branches. In the case of the involving bract we have seen (PLATE 2, fig. 8 ;
PLATE 4, fig. 6) that even the first of the secondary branches from these subhorizontal
primary branches are stronger than the central prolongation of the trace. In
the case of the narrow anterior carpel we see that these two branches occur without
any accompanying central prolongation ; in the case of the posterior carpel we find an
intermediate condition, since the central prolongation of the trace, though absent as in the
other carpel, is nevertheless replaced by the union of two minor branches, one from each of
the subhorizontal branches, to form a central nerve х. Finally, the remaining primary axial
trace, the posterior and the largest of the four (PLATE 3, figs. 1-7, δ) ends at the base of the
ovarian chamber in a specialized swelling at a point corresponding, not to the apex of the
axis but to the axil of the posterior carpel, in which position we have seen that the ovule at
first appears ; from this position the specialized strand passes backwards subhorizontally
towards the periphery, to a position corresponding with the point of coalescence of the rudi-
mentary ovule with the rudimentary posterior carpel.
The only further requirement is that the theory now stated should accord with terato-
logical phenomena. A consideration of the cases of phyllody of the pistil detailed in the
section devoted to abnormalities in Cannabis (PLATE 4, figs. 4-16) shows not only that this
is the case, but that no other theory will satisfactorily account for the conditions. The con-
ditions exhibited here seem almost to afford a reverse confirmation of the conditions figured
by Payer, as opposed to the actual conditions in the developing ovary, but while Payer's
figures, if accurate, would certainly explain them, they are still quite intelligible under
actual conditions, as a reversion, under the influence of abnormal foliar development of its
associated carpel, of the ovule at different stages of carpellary growth to the modus of a
leafbud. An examination of the cases of staminody of the pistil detailed in the same section
(PLATE 5, figs. 9-13 ; possibly also fig. 3) shows that the posterior carpel is still the fertile
one even if the ovary be unclosed, only the anterior being replaced by a stamen ; if both
carpels are replaced by stamens, the posterior is represented by an imperfect stamen out-
wardly almost as much resembling an abnormal carpel as it does an abnormal anther.
SECTION V.— Character of the Diclinism in Cannabis.
Male and female inflorescences contrasted. —When the male and the female
inflorescences of Cannabis are contrasted it is seen that the apparent remarkable
diversity between the two disappears and that, as a matter of fact, their ground-
plan is identical. The difference indeed lies only in this that whereas in the male
there is a weak development or abortion in the axils of the leafy bracts on a floral
branch, with a strong development—a cymose panicle of male flowers —in the axils
of their concomitant stipules, in the female there is a strong development—a