42 Mr. J. W. Howell on the Papaveraceae and Cruciferse. ration or complete development of these parts from the ori-ginal cellular and pulpy state has never taken place. But with this explanation the word may still be retained, unless con-nate should be considered less exceptionable. I have also assumed that ovula belong to the transformed leaf or carpel, and are not derived from processes of the axis united with it, as several eminent botanists have lately sup-posed. That the placentae and ovula really belong to the car-pel alone is at least manifest in all cases where stamina are changed into pistilla. To such monstrosities I have long since referred in my earliest observations on the type of the female organ in phaenogamous plants*, and since more particularly in my paper on Rafflesiaf : the most remarkable instances al-luded to in illustration of this point being Sempervivum tecto-rum, Salix oleifolia and Cochlearia armor acia, in all of w 7 hich every gradation between the perfect state of the anthera and its transformation into a complete pistillum, is occasionally found. XII. — On the Structure of the Capsule of Papaveraceae ; and on the Nature of the Stigma of Cruciferae. By J. W. Howell, Esq., M.R.C.S. To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. Gentlemen, In reference to your notes appended to my paper " On the Structure of the Stigma of the Papaveraceae," &c. in your last Number, wherein it would appear that I had been anticipated by M. Kunth, f Flora Berolinensis, 5 published 1838, in the description of the apparently anomalous relation of the parietal placentae to the stigmatic rays — permit me to observe, that my observations on this interesting subject w r ere made in 1832. In respect to your statement that u those of Mr. HowelPs observations which relate to the opposition of stigmata to pla-centae in Papaveraceae, and to the composition and cohesion of stigmata, had already been published by Dr. Brown in his account of Cyrtandracea in Horsfield's e Plantae Javanicae/ * which w r ork I have not yet seen, but have learned that it was published in 1840 — justice to myself compels me to inform you, that the paper I sent you was published verbatim in the 'Bath and Cheltenham Gazette' in October 1840, and was sent for republication in the ' Annals/ from a conviction that the subject was new, and worthy of a more extended circula-tion than a local paper could ensure. * In Linn. Soc. Trans., vol. xii. p. 89. f Ibid. vol. xiii. p. 212, note.
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