7
itself so that the micropyle comes just beneath the style-bases and close up to
the hilum. (PLATE 2, figs. 11, 12; 17-21). The embryo, curved in agreement
with the shape of the ovule, assumes a pseudo-incumbent position; the radicle,
pointing to the micropyle, occupies the anterior (external) portion of the
chamber; the cotyledons, forming the bulk of the ovule, occupy the posterior
(internal) part. It may therefore be termed obcampylotropous.
To the earlier writers, who recognised the involving bract as the perianth, the true perianth
was unknown; even some who had formed a true conception of the nature of the involv-
ing bract were unacquainted with the perianth, which is not shown in the figures given by
Haynel or Autenrieth,2 or in the already quoted figures by Nees and Reichenbach.
The first discovery of the perianth appears to have been made by Payer 3 though it is
evident that it was independently detected about the same time by B. Clarke. 4 Since
then it has always appeared in figures and been mentioned in descriptions of Cannabis.
Schnitzlein5 says that in certain cases it is not to be detected; Bentham and Hooker 6
do the same. The writer must, however, say that it is always to be found, if looked for, in
a normal flower; the only instances in which he has failed to detect it have been in the
cases of solitary female flowers, towards the apices of normal female spikelets, where the
involving bract was also absent; and at the apices of abnormal female spikelets in which the
sexes were mixed.
According to Payer3 the development of the perianth follows that of the involving
bract and precedes that of the ovary; he also has it that the perianth consists of two leaflets
which soon became connate; a posterior which appears before the other which is anterior 7
and next the involving bract. B. Clarke 4 also makes it out to be higher behind than
in front and Schnitzlein 5 not only makes it higher behind but deeply cleft in front. 8
The development of the perianth, however, according to Briosi and Tognini, 9 begins after
the development of the ovary has commenced; and, if there be at first a more rapid develop-
ment behind than in front, it is certain that in Indian plants the margin is ultimately almost
perfectly horizontal.
B. Clarke1 0
s p e a k s o f t h e p e r i a n t h a s a d h e r e n t t o t h e o v a r y e x c e p t a s a n a b n o r m a l i t y
and Masters1 1
h a s c o n s e q u e n t l y i n c l u d e d t h o s e c a s e s w h e r e i t i s f r e e a m o n g h i s i n s t a n c e s
of solution of the calyx. What, however, really happens is that, as a rule, the perianth is
closely applied to the ripe fruit and fits so tightly as to form practically an outer coat; it is
so described by Briosi and Tognini 12 but is, as they explain, applied to, not organically
united with the nutlet. But this is not always the case; sometimes the perianth slips
1 Arzneigewächse : Berlin, 1822; vii t. 7.
2 De discrimine sexuali, t. 1, t. 2.
3 Organogénie : Paris, 1857; p. 275, t. 68.
4 Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. Ser. 3, i. (1858) t. 6, f. 8.
5 Iconographia : Bonn, 1870; ii, t. 95.
6 Genera Plantarum; London, 1880; iii. 357.
7 These positions are, according to his view, opposite the position of the two parts of the ovary; in the
carpeilary whorl, according to Payer, the anterior appears before the posterior.
8
This would make the perianth theoretically equivalent to one axial appendage opposite to the involv-
ing bract. The condition described by Schnitzlein is that characteristic of the closely allied H umulus, but
the writer has never found it confirmed in Indian Cannabis flowers.
9 Intorno all' anatomia della Canapa, i. 50.
10 Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. Ser. 3, i. (1858), p. 102.
11 Vegetable Teratology, 81, 82.
12 Intorno all' anatomia della Canapa, i. 66, tt. 10, 11.