MB. G. BENTHAM ON EUPHORBIACEJE. 217 



well distinguished by Tulasne by the calyx, the 2-celled ovary, &c. 

 The indumentum is usually but not quite always scaly or scurfy, 

 which it never is in Antidesma. 9. jExtoxicon, a single Chilian 

 species whose affinities have been much disputed. I can, how- 

 ever, see no reason for rejecting Sir "W. Hooker's original view 

 of its connexion with Euphorbiacese. The indumentum is that 

 of Hieronyma, the flowers nearly those of Antidesma, except that 

 it has very prominent petals, nearly those of Diccelia and 

 Galearia ; the globose bract that encloses the bud is like that of 

 Per a ; the fruit is nearly that of Antidesma ; but the seed is 

 remarkable for its slightly ruminate albumen. 



The second series, with the fruit separating into cocci, com- 

 prises four genera : — 1. Hymenocardia, 5 species from tropical 

 Africa and Asia, with remarkably flat cocci opening only on their 

 inner margin. Kurz, in his ' Forest Flora of Burma,' describes 

 the cells of the ovary as uniovulate, and unites with it the very 

 different Coccoceras. I have, however, like all others who have 

 described the genus, always found the ovules in pairs in the 

 flowering state, although, like many especially drupaceous 

 genera, one ovule of each cell proves constantly abortive. The 

 flowers of Hymenocardia, are apetalous, as well as those of 

 2. Richeria, 3 tropical American species, including Podocalyx of 

 Klotzsch, which Mueller keeps up as a section of Richeria on 

 account of a difference in the anthers, said to open outwards 

 instead of inwards, a difference not very clear if the anthers are 

 taken at the same stage. The slits of the cells appear to me to 

 be lateral, a little turned inwards in the bud, outwards after 

 shedding the pollen. 3. Thecacoris, 4 species, of which three 

 from tropical Africa have small petals ; the fourth, or typical 

 Madagascar species, is unknown to me, and is said to be apeta- 

 lous. 4. Cyathogyne, a single tropical African apetalous species r 

 exceptionally herbaceous. 



There remains the anomalous genus Diccelia, described and 

 figured in Hooker's ' Icones/ tab. 1289, from a Bornean speci 

 of Beccari's. The loose, often androgynous clusters or cymules 

 along the rhachis of the racemes is different from any Phyllan- 

 thean inflorescence ; the peculiar petals and stamens are only 

 known in Galearia, from which Diccelia differs in the axillary 

 racemes and especially in the biovulate cell of the ovary, with no 

 tendency in the young seed to assume the exceptional form of 

 that of Galearia. It is, however, probably with that genus that 



