MR. G. BENTHAM ON EUPKOKBIACE^. 229 



genera having the male spikes or racemes axillary, or the upper 

 ones forming a terminal panicle, very rarely reduced to sessile 

 clusters; the male calyx is either globular and closed in the bud, 

 and splitting irregularly or into distinct sepals, or in a few genera 

 is more open with slightly imbricate lobes, but always more 

 developed than in Hippomanese; the styles free or shortly united 

 at the base, in a very few species only forming a longer column 

 much more slender than in Plukenetieae. The genera are very 

 difficult to distribute into groups ; for the characters separating 

 them are often slight or uncertain. I have, however, attempted 

 the following, viz. : 



Our first group is distinguished chiefly by the anthers with 2 

 or sometimes 4 small globular or shortly oblong cells, quite sepa- 

 rate, and erect or spreading when fully out. It comprises 9 

 genera. 1. Bernardia, 24 tropical or subtropical American spe- 

 cies, distributed by Mueller into 6 sections upon characters of 

 little importance. His limitation of the genus, as corrected in 

 the ' Flora Brasiliensis,' to the exclusion of the typical species 

 of Adenophcedra, has been adopted by Baillon. Then follow 

 eight Old- World genera, all except one united by Baillon in the 

 single genus Mer curialis, but scattered far and wide by Mueller 

 into different subtribes of his two great tribes Acalypheae and 

 Hippomanese. To me they appear to be all so closely allied as 

 to require juxtaposition ; but I cannot concur in their union into 

 a single genus. They are ; — 2. Erythrococca, a single slender 

 prickly shrub from tropical Africa, characterized chiefly by the 

 capsule reduced to a single globular indehiscent one-seeded 

 carpel. 3. Hasskarlia is a very distinct tropical African shrub, 

 admitted as a genus both by Mueller and Baillon, and com- 

 pared by the latter to Tetrorchidium on account of the 3 nearly 

 sessile 4-lobed anthers. It differs, however, essentially in the 

 anthers alternate with, not opposite, the sepals ; and the male 

 inflorescence is that of Claoxylon. 4. Claoxylon, a genus of 

 above 40 species, chiefly East-Indian or from the Malayan archi- 

 pelago, but extending from tropical Africa to Australia and the 

 South-Pacific islands. They are all shrubby or arborescent, and 

 readily recognized by the shape of the anthers. They are distri- 

 buted in the ' Prodromus' into five sections (without Micrococca), 

 according to small differences in the disk or margin of the recep- 

 tacle in the male flowers. This disk, however, is often so minute 

 as to be difficult to observe accurately ; and the character is not 



