But its cleistogamic flowers apparently include four
anthers instead of two as above described. The plants, moreover, of V.
sessiflora produce subterranean runners which yield capsules; and I never saw a
trace of such runners in V. nummularifolia, although many plants were
cultivated.
Linaria spuria.
Michalet says that short, thin, twisted branches are developed from the buds in
the axils of the lower leaves, and that these bury themselves in the ground.
(8/12. 'Bulletin Soc. Bot. de France' tome 7 1860 page 468.) They there produce
flowers not offering any peculiarity in structure, excepting that their
corollas, though properly coloured, are deformed. These flowers may be ranked as
cleistogamic, as they are developed, and not merely drawn, beneath the ground.
Ononis columnae.
Plants were raised from seeds sent me from Northern Italy. The sepals of the
cleistogamic flowers are elongated and closely pressed together; the petals are
much reduced in size, colourless, and folded over the interior organs. The
filaments of the ten stamens are united into a tube, and this is not the case,
according to Von Mohl, with the cleistogamic flowers of other Leguminosae. Five
of the stamens are destitute of anthers, and alternate with the five thus
provided. The two cells of the anthers are minute, rounded and separated from
one another by connective tissue; they contain but few pollen-grains, and these
have extremely delicate coats.
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