ME. G. BENTHA.M OS TILIACEjK. 71. 



Sepala 2 Lin. longa. Antherse pnberulae, filamento subsequilongse, 

 apiculo brevi. 

 Hab. Near San Carlos on the Upper Rio Negro, R. Spruce, n. 3689. 



30. S. jamaicensis, Hook. Ic. PL t. 693 to 696; Griseb. Fl. Brit. 

 W. Ind. p. 98. Pedunculi 1-flori. Sepala semipollicaria. 



Hab. Jamaica, Purdie. 



This species is remarkable for its large solitary flowers, and for the 

 presence of petals, which are sometimes notched or toothed, showing an 

 approach to Echinocarpus and Elceocarpus. 



Echinocahpus, Blume. 



This Asiatic genus, very shortly characterized by Blume in his 

 ' Bijdragen,' was placed by him among JBixacece, probably on 

 account of some external analogy of its fruit with that of Bixa, 

 the ovary not having been examined. Clos, describing with rather 

 more detail an incomplete specimen of Zollinger's, was still 

 unable to ascertain the structure of the ovary, and consequently 

 has not removed the plant from Bixacece. We have now, however, 

 in the collections of Griffith, and of Hooker and Thomson, five 

 Indian species besides an Australian one from other collectors, 

 which enable us fully to complete the character of the genus, and 

 to fix its place in close proximity to the American Sloanea, con- 

 necting them with the Asiatic Elceocarpus. The large convex 

 disk, pitted all over with the scars of the stamens after their fall, 

 the acuminate anthers opening towards the summit, the ovary 

 usually 4- or 5-celled with several ovules in each cell, the simple 

 style, the echinate or densely velvety capsule opening in thick 

 woody valves, and containing one or very few seeds, and, as far as 

 we know, the seeds themselves, are all precisely those of Sloanea. 

 The generic distinction lies in the perianth, which is somewhat 

 anomalous in the order ; the 4 or 5 sepals are decidedly imbricate 

 in aestivation ; and the petals, always present, usually of a greenish 

 calycine aspect, although thinner than the sepals, are as long as 

 them or longer, usually very broad and more or less lobed. The 

 latter character connects the genus with Elaocarpus, from which 

 it abundantly differs in the sepals, in the disk, and in the fruit. 



The following are the species now known : — 



§ 1. Capsula aculeis longis, rigidis echinata. 

 1. E. murex. Foliis oblongis sublanceolatisve acuminatis (2-4- 

 poll.) glabris, fructus aculeis basi incrassatis. 



