) They have been fully
described by Von Mohl, and I can add hardly anything to his description. In my
specimens the anthers of the five longer stamens were nearly on a level with the
stigmas; whilst the smaller and less plainly bilobed anthers of the five shorter
stamens stood considerably below the stigmas, so that their tubes had to travel
some way upwards. According to Michalet these latter anthers are sometimes quite
aborted. In one case the tubes, which ended in excessively fine points, were
seen by me stretching upwards from the lower anthers towards the stigmas, which
they had not as yet reached. My plants grew in pots, and long after the perfect
flowers had withered they produced not only cleistogamic but a few minute open
flowers, which were in an intermediate condition between the two kinds. In one
of these the pollen-tubes from the lower anthers had reached the stigmas, though
the flower was open. The footstalks of the cleistogamic flowers are much shorter
than those of the perfect flowers, and are so much bowed downwards that they
tend, according to Von Mohl, to bury themselves in the moss and dead leaves on
the ground. Michalet also says that they are often hypogean. In order to
ascertain the number of seeds produced by these flowers, I marked eight of them;
two failed, one cast its seed abroad, and the remaining five contained on an
average 10.
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