lous, and Nuttall compared it with Pwxonia, adding that it 
might be regarded as the type of a new group, which he 
called the Crossosomeze. The late Dr. Asa Gray, writing 
to Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Hooker in 1859, says: “I told 
Torrey long ago I thought the plant was Dilleniaceous; 
what do you say to it?” Bentham & Hooker placed it 
doubtingly at the end of the Dilleniaceze. Engler (op. sup. 
cit.) treats it as the type of a new natural order, which 
he places between the Platanacew and Rosacex, laying 
great stress on the perigynous position of the petals and 
stamens. 
For my own part I can find no better place for it than 
the Dilleniacez. In habit and flowers C. californicum is 
very much like some species of the Australian genus 
Hibbertia; the follicular fruit is very similar to that of 
Dillenia subsessilis, Gilg, as figured in Engler & Prantl’s 
* Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien,’’ vol. iii. 6, pi 107; 4256; 
and the fringed aril of the seed has an almost exact counter- 
part in Tetracera Assa, DC., figured in the same place. 
Again, the small embryo and relatively copious endo- 
sperm is a further bar to an alliance with the Rosacee. 
Exceptional perigyny occurs in so many natural orders 
that I attach less importance to it than the sum of the 
other characters. 
The specimen figured flowered in the garden of 
W. Gumbleton, Esq., at Belgrove, near Cork, in August 
of last year, and it is believed to be the first occasion of 
~. this shrub flowering in Europe. What the future of this 
plant may be in European gardens it is impossible to 
predict, but it is likely to prove a difficult subject. It 
should be placed in the driest, warmest and most open 
situation possible out-of-doors, but it would probably 
succeed better in a warm, rather dry conservatory. 
Descr.—A dwarf, tortuously-branched shrub, three to 
four feet high, glabrous in nearly all parts; bark and 
leaves pale green. Branches slender; internodes short ; 
bark very bitter. Leaves alternate, very shortly stalked, 
exstipulate, at length coriaceous, oblong-lanceolate, the 
largest three inches and a half long by one inch broad, 
entire, cuneate at the base, rounded at the tip with the 
midrib running out into a fine point, veins immersed, 
inconspicuous. flowers white (anthers yellow), about two 
