ME. G. BENTHAM ON MYKTACEiE. 101 



In tlie subdivision of this overgro-v\^n genus we have again fol- 

 lowed Grisebacli in attaching primary importance to inflorescence, 

 although we cannot go so far as to give it generic value, which 

 would necessitate the removal into Jambosa of nearly the whole 

 of the Asiatic Eugenias, thus disturbing the nomenclature sanc- 

 tioned by Wight, A, Gray, and others, without adequate advan- 

 tage. There is no concomitant difference in the flowers or 

 foliage; and after all, where the secondary inflorescence remains 

 undeveloped (where the flowers are solitary in the axils) the cha- 

 racter it supplies becomes almost theoretical, to be judged of 

 chiefly by analogy or by geographical circumstances. We have 

 in the next place adopted the distinction pointed out by De 

 Candolle, the separate expansion of the petals in Eugenia ])yo^ov 

 and Jamlosa^ and their cohering and falling off* together in Syzy- 

 gium ; but this distinction is far from being so absolute as was 

 supposed when it was taken for the generic character oi Syzygiumj 

 and requires supplementing by other considerations. In the 

 Janibosa section the calyx-tube is rather more constantly pro- 

 duced between the ovary and the insertion of the stamens; and 

 the limb above the stamens is distinctly divided into four usually 

 persistent lobes ; and the petals always expand and fall off* sepa- 

 rately. In Syzygitim the interval between the ovary and the 

 stamens is not always conspicuous, the calyx-limb is usually 

 truncate or sinuate and obscurely lobed, or the lobes are deci- 

 duous, and the petals in most species are more or less coherent 

 or very small, or altogether w anting. Where in either case one 

 of the characters fails, it may be supplemented by the other. 

 The habit presents in both groups nearly the same variations, 

 which may serve for their further subdivision. 



We shall thus have three great sections or subgenera : — Janibosa 

 and Syzygitcrriy each with about 60 (reduced from 80 or 90) Asiatic, 

 Australian, and African species, and Eugenia proper {Eueugenia^ 

 Wight, or Eugeniastrum, Griseb.), with between 300 and 400 

 American species, "with a few from Africa, Australia, and Asia* 

 To these sections may, perhaps, be added a fourth, Myrciaria^ 

 to which I shall presently revert. 



The genera which various authors have proposed to dismember 

 from Eugenia^ and which we would now, after Wight, Grisebach, 

 and others restore to it, are, besides Syzygiv/m^ the following : — 



CaryopJiyllus^TAnn., was very naturally distinguished from-E'w- 

 genia at a time when the few species of the latter genus then 

 known had a short calyx-tube and free expanding petals ; whilst 



IiIKW. PROC. BOTANY. VOL. X, M 



