It has been shown by H. Muller that this species exists in Germany under an hermaphrodite and female form. (7/18. ‘Die Befruchtung der Blumen’ page 368. The two forms occur not only in Germany, but in England and France. Lecoq ‘Geographie Bot.’ 1857 tome 6 pages 473, 477, says that male plants as well as hermaphrodites and females coexist; it is, however, possible that he may have been deceived by the flowers being so strongly proterandrous. From what Lecoq says, S. succisa likewise appears to occur under two forms in France.) In my neighbourhood (Kent) the female plants do not nearly equal in number the hermaphrodites. The stamens of the females vary much in their degree of abortion; in some plants they are quite short and produce no pollen; in others they reach to the mouth of the corolla, but their anthers are not half the proper size, never dehisce, and contain but few pollen-grains, these being colourless and of small diameter. The hermaphrodite flowers are strongly proterandrous, and H. Muller shows that, whilst all the stigmas on the same flower-head are mature at nearly the same time, the stamens dehisce one after the other; so that there is a great excess of pollen, which serves to fertilise the female plants. As the production of pollen by one set of plants is thus rendered superfluous, their male organs have become more or less completely aborted. Should it be hereafter proved that the female plants yield, as is probable, more seeds than the hermaphrodites, I should be inclined to extend the same view to this plant as to the Labiatae. I have also observed the existence of two forms in our endemic S. succisa, and in the exotic S. atro-purpurea. In the latter plant, differently to what occurs in S. arvensis, the female flowers, especially the larger circumferential ones, are smaller than those of the hermaphrodite form. According to Lecoq, the female flower-heads of S. succisa are likewise smaller than those of what he calls the male plants, but which are probably hermaphrodites. Echium vulgare (BORAGINEAE).