GENERA OF UNCERTAIN POSITION. 337 



margin ; the filaments of all are subulate. This structure is very- 

 different from that in the Parinarium of Aublet. Equally diffe- 

 rent is the structure of its fruit, which is a corticated nut adherent 

 to the enlarged 5-toothed calyx, the size of a filbert, which it 

 much resembles ; it is gibbously oblong, 1-celled by abortion, the 

 cell filled with a seed having copious albumen surrounding a 

 cylindrical embryo, with a superior radicle longer than the two 

 ligulate cotyledons. 



The presence of albumen is not singular in the family: it 

 occurs in Chrysobalanus Ieaco\ and in Hirtella triandra, Sw. 2 ; 

 but all mention of this circumstance is omitted in the generic 

 diagnoses of the two genera in Dr. Hooker's monograph, and 

 in the ' Genera Plantarum ' of Benthain and Hooker ; but I am 

 able to confirm the presence of albumen in the seed of IZJr- 

 tella, as Gaertner stated. I found it in the seed of Hirtella 

 Jleheclada, Moric. {Hirtella Gardneri, Benth.), from the Organ 

 Mountains (Gardner 370, in my herb. 2228-2283, 3432-4094). 

 Here the fruit, seated on the persistent calyx, is cuneately oblong, 

 9 lines long, 4 lines broad ; it contains a seed with solid albumen 

 4 lines long, 1| line broad, enclosing in its low r er part an embryo 

 of 3 equal erect oval cotyledons, one anterior, two sublateral, with 

 a minute inferior radicle. The presence of albumen in this genus 

 is also confirmed by DeCandolle 3 . 



Returning from this digression, I will add that the Parinarium 

 senegalense, Perr., and Parinarium excehum, Sabine, from Sierra 

 Leone 4 , together with four undescribed species from Biafra, all 

 appear to belong to GriJJbnia 5 , a genus peculiar to tropical Africa, 

 notable for its unilocular ovary with two ascending ovules, and a 

 dry oblong 1-celled fruit, hispid within, containing a single erect 

 seed with a membranaceous testa and a large exalbuminous em- 

 bryo of two conferruminated cotyledons. 



This latter most unusual circumstance will be referred to in my 

 paper entitled " Notes on Moquilea" postea, p. 371. 



1 Lam. Illustr. tab. 428 A ; Schitzl. Icon. Ordo 274, ex Tussac. Antill. iv. 

 tab. 31. 



2 Gaertn. fil. Fruct. p. 37, tab. 185, p. 40, tab. 185. 



3 Prodr. ii. p. 528. 



4 DC. Trcdr. ii. p. 527. 



5 Benth. & Hook. Gen. Plant, i. n. 608. 



