GO ME. 0. BENTHAM ON TEBN8TB(EMIACE^. 



unaptly reduced Calpandria. Pyrenaria forms an excellent allied 

 genus, in the same tribe of Gordoniece, with the habit, inflores- 

 cence, and flowers of Oordonia, but well characterized by its 

 drupaceous indehiscent fruit, which is exceptional in the tribe, 

 and by its cotyledons very much more folded than even in 

 O. lasianthus. 



The Marcgraviacece of Jussieu are a small group of plants which 

 do not appear to have been hitherto brought into direct com- 

 parison with Ternstroemiacece, but which seem to me to be so 

 closely connected with the tribe of Ternstroemiea proper, as to be 

 necessarily included in the same family. Botanists have probably 

 been misled by the singular manner in which the petals of the 

 supposed typical genus Marcgravia are consolidated so as to con- 

 ceal their aestivation, and by the admixture of the characters of 

 Antholoma, which has been so unaccountably associated with the 

 group. Taking the genera Norantea and Muyschia to explain such 

 points as are concealed from us in Marcgravia, we have little or 

 nothing in the sepals, petals, stamens, ovaries, and (sessile) stig- 

 mas to distinguish them from Adinandra. The ovules, it is true, 

 are ascending, not horizontal or pendulous — a diversity which we 

 have seen to occur in other cases between closely allied genera in 

 the Order. The seeds also, as far as known (only in Ruyschia), 

 are less curved than in Ternstroemiece proper ; and their embryo is 

 thicker, although cylindrical, with the cotyledons continuous with, 

 and no thicker than the radical, as in Ternstrceiniece proper. These 

 slight differences, with their terminal racemose inflorescence and 

 singular bracts, will suffice to characterize a tribe, but not, in our 

 opinion, a distinct Order. 



Antholoma, an Austro-Caledonian plant to which I have alluded 

 as having been so unaccountably included in the group of Marc- 

 graviece, is known only from Labillardicre's figure and description. 

 Notwithstanding a discrepancy in the latter, probably typogra- 

 phical, between the generic character and specific description, an 

 inspection of the figure suggests to us the probability of its being a 

 genuine species of Bassia, rather than an Elaeocarpous genus as 

 conjectured by Planchon. 



Cochlospermum, Kunth, Microsemma, Labill., Leucoxylon, Blume, 

 Quiina, Aubl., and Pcecilandra, Tub, which have been severally 

 associated with Ternstrcemiacece, have been now removed by Plan- 

 chon, Choisy, and others. Catostemma, a genus which I published 

 from specimens of Schomburgk's, has some points of affinity with 

 the Order, but, from its decidedly perigynous stamens and petals, 



