MR. G. BENTHAM ON EUPHORBIACE-E. 213 



under that name, and therefore retained his nomenclature. 

 Fluggea and Breynia are both of them limited to the Indo-Austra- 

 lian region, the former with six, the latter with twelve species. 



Our third group consists of trees or shrubs with alternate 

 leaves and the typical Phyllanthus inflorescence, the stamens 

 sometimes uniseriate, but more frequently indefinite, round a 

 broad central disk, or rarely in the centre of the flower, the 

 styles or stigmas dilated and spreading from the base, distinct or 

 forming a sessile renif orm or orbicular disk ; the fruit fleshy 

 outside, with a hard endocarp, indehiscent or rarely separating 

 ultimately into 2-valved cocci. We here include five genera: 

 Petalostigma, a single Australian species differing from the others 

 in the fruit ultimately separating into 2-valved cocci, although 

 before dehiscence it is globose, with so fleshy an exocarp as to be 

 described by collectors as a drupe. Putranjiva, 2 Indian well- 

 known species. Drypetes, about 9 tropical American species, 

 including the Brazilian Treireodendron, separated by Mueller from 

 Drypetes on account of the absence of any rudimentary pistil in 

 the male flower, which is said to be characteristic of the West- 

 Indian typical species. In all, however, the stamens surround a 

 central disk, which, in some of the Cuban species, is scarcely 

 convex and certainly not protruding into what can be termed 

 a rudimentary pistil. Hemicyclia, 9 species from the Indo- 

 Australian region, with the pistil reduced to a single carpel, as 

 it is also in some species of Drypetes ; and Cyclostemon, about 

 18 species from tropical Africa and Asia. Mueller includes 

 among the latter Hasskarl's Dodecastemon, which is unknown to 

 me, but if the styles are really filiform it probably belongs to 

 some other group. 



The fourth group, perhaps rather artificial, consists of Old- 

 World trees or shrubs with constantly opposite or verticillate 

 undivided leaves, the axillary inflorescence looser or more 

 branched than in the preceding groups, but usually short ; the 

 flowers apetalous, the stamens various, the styles undivided, 

 linear or short, thick and erect or somewhat spreading. There 

 are six genera : — 1. Dissiliaria, 3 Australian species, from 

 which Baillon has recently separated the D. tricornis under the 

 name of Choriceras, on account of the persistent bases of the 

 three styles being at a considerable distance from each other, 



to the cocci. But thi& 



orns 



character alone can scarcely be regarded as of generic value ; for, 





