216 MB. G. BERTRAM ON EUPHORBIACE^J. 



in two valves. There are about 20 species, all from tropical 

 Asia (including the Archipelago). 3. Daphniphyllum, an excep- 

 tional tropical Asiatic genus of about 11 species, rejected 

 from the order by Mueller on account of the smallness of the 

 embryo, which varies from about one sixth to one fourth of the 

 length of the albumen. This embryo, however, is shaped like 

 that of some species of Baccaurea, which appears to be the genus 

 to which Daplinipliyllum is the nearest allied in habit as well as 

 in character. The stamens are exceptional iu the group, being 

 nearly those of Toxicodendron, Stylocer as, and Simmondsia, without 

 any rudimentary pistil. The fruit is an indehiscent, usually 

 1-seeded drupe. 4. Baccaurea (Pierardia, Eoxb.), extending in 

 about 30 species over tropical Asia to the Pacific islands. 

 The fruit is fleshy, at length much hardened and indehiscent, or 

 in some species opening tardily in loculicidal valves. These 

 dehiscent species, forming Jack's genus Hedycarpus, have been 

 rejected from the order on account of that dehiscence, of which, 

 however, as already observed, many examples are now known in 

 Euphorbiacese ; and in one or two species of Baccaurea the dehis- 

 cence is very tardy and apparently not constant. Endlicher 

 transfers Hedycarpus to Sapindace^e, from which it w idely differs 

 in structure. Platystigma of Wallich's Catalogue, no. 7523, is a 

 Silhet plant of which female specimens only are known ; these 

 flowers are nearly those of Hemicyclia ; but the habit and in- 

 florescence are those of some species of Baccaurea ; at any rate 

 the genus cannot be established until the male flowers are 

 known ; and the name is preoccupied in Papaveraceae. 5. Cometia, 

 2 Madagascar species unknown to me ; but from the character 

 given they seem to belong rather to this group than to our third 

 one, though, like Daphniphy Hum, the female flowersmust be nearly 

 those of Hemicyclia ; Baillon describes the male flowers as having 

 a rudimentary pistil, which Mueller denies. 6. Antidesma, a 

 well-known and distinctly characterized genus, of which above 60 

 species are described, many of them very ill-defined. It spreads 

 over tropical Africa and Asia, extending in the east from Aus- 

 tralia to Japan and the Pacific islands, but unknown in America. 

 The fruit is a small, usually oblique, indehiscent drupe. 7. 

 Mcesobotrya, a single African species, connecting Antidesma with 

 Hieronyma and Thecacoris, published in Hooker's ' Icones,' plate 

 1296. 8. Hieronyma, under 10 species, the American representa- 

 tive of Antidesma, with which it is reunited by Baillon, but was 



