MR. G. BENTHAM ON EUPHORBIACE^. 209 



plant, appear to us to be such as to warrant the following him 

 in retaining it as a distinct genus* Another petaliferous genus, 

 Gonatoyyne, Klotzsch, has been published by Mueller in the c Flora 

 Brasiliensis ' from imperfect specimens gathered by Sello in 

 South Brazil. Baillon refers it to Amanoa, of which, however, it 

 has neither the fruit nor the habit ; it is probably more nearly 

 allied to Savia clusiafolia, Griseb., but must remain for the 

 present of very doubtful affinity. 



The typical apetalous Phyllanthese have sessile or pedicellate 

 flowers in sessile axillary clusters, or the females solitary on 

 longer pedicels, the calyx imbricate, the stamens uniseriate oppo- 

 site the sepals, the styles erect or recurved, linear or slender, 

 simple or bifid, or dilated into flat stigmas at the end only ; the 

 fruit capsular, separating into two-valved cocci, or baccate and 

 three-celled ; the seeds with copious albumen and broad, flat, thin, 

 cotyledons, — the chief exceptions to these characters being in 

 solitary or very few species of Phyllanthus itself. 



We commence with three small Old- World tropical genera, Agy- 

 neia, Sauropus, and Cluytiandra, which have all the habit of many 

 species of Phyllanthus, but are distinguished chiefly by a fleshy, 

 often scale-like thickening of the base or centre of each of the 

 sepals, described by Mueller as so many lobes or glands of the 

 disk. In this view I cannot well concur ; for they are removed 

 from the receptacle, a considerable interval occurring between 

 them and the stamens in some species ; in other species they are 

 concave, almost enclosing the stamens before the flower expands. 

 Mueller, moreover, regarding these scales as disk-glands, and 

 observing them to be opposed to the stamens, not alternate with 

 them, as in the case of true glands or lobes of the disk, supposes 

 them to indicate that the petals are not organically absent, but 

 constantly suppressed. He accordingly removes these genera 

 from their natural allies to place them amongst petaliferous ones ; 

 and Baillon even unites Cluytiandra with Andrachne. To my 

 mind it is clear that their proper place is next to Phyllanthus \ 

 and that Cluytiandra, quite distinct from Andrachne, is scarcely 

 separable from Sauropus. The rudimentary pistil in the male 

 flowers, deficient in Agyneia and Sauropus, is described by 

 Mueller as terminating the staminal column in Cluytiandra ; it 

 is in our specimens but very small and obscure, and scarcely of 



generic importance. 



Of the main genus Phyllanthus Mueller has described, in the 



