18 МЕ. G. BENTHAM'8 SYNOPSIS OF DALBERGIE E, 
indicate the direction in which the fertilized ovary would enlarge. 
I have therefore not ventured to fix its generic affinities. 
PLATYMISCIUM. 
A small genus of about thirteen species, all American, and at 
once known by the leaves, constantly opposite or ternately verti- 
cillate,—an arrangement unknown in any other pinnate-leaved 
Papilionacese, excepting a few species of Dipteryx, which, whether 
in flower or in fruit, cannot for а moment be confounded with it. 
The Platymisciums are all glabrous, except а slight hairiness on the 
racemes of a very few species. The flowers are yellow, as in Pte- 
rocarpus, which they resemble in many respects. The fruit is flat 
and very thin, as in some Dalbergias and Lonchocarpi, but the 
flowers have neither the peculiar anthers of Dalbergia nor the 
closed staminal tube or adherent ale of Lonchocarpus. The spe- 
€ies are, however, very difficult to characterize. In many cases, 
the leaves are not fully developed at the time of flowering, and 
the leaflets very deciduous when the fruit is advanced. . The spe- 
cimens -in herbaria are therefore usually very: unsatisfactory, and 
several of the forms here described as species may possibly, when 
better known, have hereafter to be united. 
HYMENOLOBIUM and OsTRYOCARPUS. 
Two isolated flat-fruited species, with the foliage of Lonchocarpus, 
but with the wings entirely free from. the keel, and the stamens 
never forming a complete tube. In the Hymenolobium, from South 
America, the flowers are nearly those of the Andira amazonum, 
but the thin broad membranous pod is very different from that of 
any true Andira. Ostryocarpus, from tropical Africa, is much 
nearer Lonchocarpus, but the anomalies in the petals, stamens, and 
pod prevent the joining it with that genus without giving to 
the latter a character too vague for practical use. I have been 
obliged, therefore, to leave these two plants as single species of 
detached genera. 
LoncHocarrus, DrenRIS, PONGAMIA, Prscrpta, and MÜLLERA. 
These five genera constitute a natural group distingnished among 
Dalbergiee by their inflorescence, by their wing-petals adhering 
to the keel by means of a lateral fold or protuberance immediately 
above the claw, and by the tenth or upper.stamen, which, although 
free and at some distance from the others at the very base, is 
generally united with, or at any rate in close contiguity with the 
