On the roadside
some plants had been cut down, whilst the cleistogamic panicles were developing,
and these plants afterwards produced free or unenclosed panicles of small size,
bearing perfect flowers.
Leersia oryzoides.
It has long been known that this plant produces cleistogamic flowers, but these
were first described with care by M. Duval-Jouve. (8/24. 'Bulletin Bot. Soc. de
France' tome 10 1863 page 194.) I procured plants from a stream near Reigate,
and cultivated them for several years in my greenhouse. The cleistogamic flowers
are very small, and usually mature their seeds within the sheaths of the leaves.
These flowers are said by Duval-Jouve to be filled by slightly viscid fluid; but
this was not the case with several that I opened; but there was a thin film of
fluid between the coats of the glumes, and when these were pressed the fluid
moved about, giving a similarly deceptive appearance of the whole inside of the
flower being thus filled. The stigma is very small and the filaments extremely
short; the anthers are less than 1/50 of an inch in length or about one-third of
the length of those in the perfect flowers. One of the three anthers dehisces
before the two others. Can this have any relation with the fact that in some
other species of Leersia only two stamens are fully developed? (8/25.
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