ME. D. OLIVEE ON AUBJLMTACE2E. 19 



tata, and he is followed by Professor Miquel (Plor. Ind. Bat.). I 

 cannot doubt but that neither of these botanists is acquainted 

 with the true plant. The essential characters of the genus rest 

 especially in the broad, foliaceous, and remarkably contortuplicate 

 cotyledons ; perhaps, also, in the singular torsion of the dissepi- 

 ments of the ovary, which, in M. pubescens, is usually apparent 

 immediately after the fall of the floral whorls. How is this con- 

 dition brought about ? Is it due to a torsion of the axis of the 

 ■ ovarium ? I have not ascertained whether its direction be con- 

 stant ; this ought to be studied upon the living plant. The fruit 

 is but 1- (or 2-) seeded, and the twisted dissepiments with the 

 empty loculaments are soon closely pressed to one side by the 

 young seed. The style is minutely constricted or articulated at 

 the base to the ovary. In M. pubescens the ovary is very usually 

 5-locular ; in Ceylon and Java specimens I have found an excep- 

 tional 6th cell ; in the Australian plant from Port Essington, Ac., 

 it varies, 4, 5 or 3. M. molle, Turcz., I have found to be 4-locular, 

 but probably it also varies. 



The peculiar features which I have remarked of the ovary and 

 seed are associated with other common characters, which render 

 the genus a tolerably natural one. These are especially the truly 

 valvate or obliquely valvate aestivation of the corolla, and the 

 terminal cymose corymbs of numerous flowers, — as in Murraya 

 seldom or never having the central axis of inflorescence elongated 

 as it is in the paniculate Clausence (including Gookid), and, in less 

 degree, in Piplostylis. I am acquainted with but three species of 

 Micromelum. Prom the previous observations upon M. pubescens, 

 it will be apparent, however, that were the minor differences which 

 I have alluded to regarded as of specific value, we might at least 

 double the number of species in the genus. On this extreme view, 

 the (1) Australian, (2) Polynesian, (3) Archipelago, Malay and 

 Ceylon, and (4) the Sikkim and Assam forms, or varieties as I 

 have held them, would be separated. We find the Micromelum, 

 m continental Asia, confined to tracts bordering on the high lands 

 of the Himalaya, and along the continuation of the chain, through 

 Birma and the Malay Peninsula. May we suppose that, at a 



gerrimus!). In ceteris characterem CooHce . . . quadrans genus, floribus qui- 

 nariis. Dissepimenta baccarum . . . seminibus reliquis abortivis, uno alterove 

 evoluta intorta." I have examined both barren and 5-seeded fruits of Cookia, 

 preserved in fluid in the Kew Museum, and find nothing resembling the spiral 

 torsion of the dissepiments of Micromelum. Besides, the structure of the seeds 

 « totally different. 



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