ON SOUTH-AMERICAN APOCYNACE. 125 
formes, utrinque longe subulato-acuminate, glabre, in quibus semina ipsa nidulantur 
anguste lineari-ovoidea, apice acuminata, basi rotundiora, tota superficie dense sericeo- 
pilosa, et longitrorsum pluricostulata, ad apicem radicularem sericeo-comosa; coma 
longius breviusve stipitata, cum spermadermio haud articulata.” 
There is one important omission in these circumstantial details, no mention being 
made of the manner of attachment of the seeds, whether suspended by a funicle, as in 
Stipecoma, or peltately affixed by a central hilum, as in Rhabdadenia. We may fairly 
incline to the latter view, because Miiller thus describes the ovules in each ovary, 
“amphitropa, in placenta ventrali lamelloso-bifida, pluriserialia.” The above mode of 
placentation is quite unexampled; and we have no reason to doubt the correctness of 
such minute details. Perhaps some degree of analogy may exist in the processes I have 
described in the placenta of Stipecoma. 
Messrs. Bentham and Hooker, after an interval of sixteen years, are the only botanists 
who have acknowledged this genus (Gen. ii. 727); but in their diagnosis they singularly 
omit all mention of the extraordinary placentation of the fruit; they merely describe 
the seeds as having a plumose rostrum. 
1. Urecuires Kanwiwskir, Müll. Linn. xxx. 440, In Mexico: non vidi. 
2. URECHITES ANDRIEUXU, Müll. /. c. p. 442. In Mexico: non vidi. 
3. Urecurres susERECTA, Müll. 7. c. p. 444: Echites suberecta, Linn., Jacq. Am. p. 32, tab. 26 (non 
Sw. nec Andr.) ; A. DC. 1. c. p. 453; Schlect. Linn. xxvi. 666: Laubertia urechites (Echites sub- 
erecta), Griseb. Fl. Brit. W. Ind. p. 415. In Jamaica et San Domingo: non vidi. 
A plant full of milky juice, 10 feet high when supported by other bushes, but in the 
open fields scarcely more than 1 to 3 feet in height. It has slender branches, with axils ` 
+1 in. apart; opposite leaves ovate-elliptie, subacute at the base, summits rounded and 
mucronate, glabrous, sometimes scabrous beneath, 12-24 in. long, $-1 in. broad, on 
petioles 1 line long; panicle subterminal, 14 in. long; peduncle 8 lines long, branched, 
few-flowered ; pedicels 6 lines long, pilose, with small lanceolate bracts; sepals subu- 
lately lanceolate, pilose outside, deciduous, 4 lines long, 2 lines broad, sparsely pilose 
outside, with a few pointed basal scales; corolla 14 in. long; tube below narrowly 
cylindrical, 1 line broad for the length of 4 lines, thence suddenly enlarging in a cylin- 
drical form and 4 lines broad; segments glabrous, dolabriform, 8 lines long, 7 lines 
broad; stamens seated in the contraction of the tube in a pilose ring, the filaments being 
Short and glabrous; anthers acute at the summit, shortly 2-lobed (not aristate) at the 
base, lobes obtuse, incurved, and they are slightly scabrous on the back; disk of 5 ovate 
fleshy emarginated lobes, as long as the 2 free ovaries; style slender, shortly bifid at the 
base, clavuncle thickened, 5-grooved, glandular, with a basal membranaceous peltiform 
appendage; 2 stigmata, short and terminal; 2 follicles, erect, slender, subincurved, 
fuscous, 4 in, long, 2 lines thick. The peculiar placentation and structure of the seeds 
are fully described above, as quoted from Müller. 
This species has been confounded by most botanists with the Echites suberecta, Swartz 
and Andr. (non Jacq.); Swartz (Observ. p. 104) makes the same mistake; Hook. and 
