OF THE TONGA OR FRIENDLY ISLANDS. 165 
which may be seen in some of the seeds near the base. I ex- 
tracted the embryos for examination, and afterwards stuck the 
testa together again to make museum specimens. I have de- 
scribed four species of this genus: two from the Solomon Islands, 
one from Fiji, collected by Mr. J. Horne, the late Director of 
the Mauritius Botanic Gardens, and one presented to Kew by 
the Rev. G. Henslow, the native country of which is unknown. 
According to Mr. Comins’s notes these seeds are known in the 
Solomon Islands by a name signifying turtle-seed; hence my 
name Chelonespermum. 
The next thing I have to notice is Lepinia taitensis, which 
has one of the most singularly constructed fruits in existence. 
It is a member of the Apocynacee, and in the flowering-stage 
the ovary is undivided, but soon the usually four carpels of 
which it is composed separate from each other except at the tips, 
and develop long slender stalks carrying up the seed-bearing 
portions in the form of across. This tree would appear to be 
exceedingly rare. Decaisne described and figured it as long ago 
as 1849 from Tahitan specimens, and, so far as I am aware, it 
has not been found in any locality between Tahiti and San 
Christoval, in the Solomon Islands, where Mr. Comins collected 
the present specimen, localities separated by about 3300 miles 
of water and small islands. I think it must be extremely rare 
in Tahiti, because we have no specimen in the many collections 
from that island at Kew, nor does it exist in any of the earlier 
collections in the British Museum. I will not attempt to explain 
the object of this curious development. 
I will conclude these notes with a few remarks on some other 
new plants from Mr. Comins’s last collection, described at 
p- 211. Dysoxylum megalanthum, a Meliaceous tree, is remarkable 
for the large size of its flowers. Crossostyles Cominsit (p. 212) is 
a member of the Legnotidezx, and the present species is charac- 
terized by having entire petals and no staminodes. Eugenia 
salomonensis is a very showy species of its genus, and Ruellia 
Guppyi must be a very ornamental plant. 
Finally I may mention Antiaris turbinifera (p. 215), the 
Humming-top tree of the natives, who make humming-tops of 
the crustaceous endocarp of the fruit. 
