and here the matter must rest for the present, with the 
remark, that some very old withered fruits of the Kew 
plant have been observed to turn black, but this is quite 
exceptional. 
The genus Coriaria, which contains six or more species, 
has been ably monographed by Maximowicz in the Memoirs 
of the St. Petersburgh Academy, where he divides it into 
two sections ; in one, to which all the old world species 
belong, the racemes are formed on the wood of the previous 
year, and the bracts are rounded, or ovate; in the other, 
containing two or more species of New Zealand and — 
South America, the racemes terminate in the shoots of the 
year, and have subulate bracts. Of the first section there 
are two divisions, one in which the male and female flowers 
are much alike, and the filaments very short, to which the 
European ©. myrtifolia and the Himalayan (O. nepalensis be- 
long ; the other with very dissimilar male and fem. flowers, 
and very long filaments, includes C. japonica, and the closely 
allied C. sinica, Maxim. The affinities of the genus, 
which are very obscure, Maximowicz regards as closest 
with Simarubex. 
The figure of C. japonica here given is of a specimen 
which flowered in Canon Ellacombe’s garden, Bitton, early 
in June of the present year. Another plant flowered at 
the same time in the Royal Gardens, which was raised 
from seeds collected in Japan by Professor Sargent. Its 
nearest ally is the Chinese C. sinica, Maxim., which 
has the fruiting sepals hardly imbricate, and the ripe 
carpels much smaller, with only three ribs; the colour of 
the sepals of sinica is not given. 
Descr.—A low branching shrub, with square stem and 
branches, flowering on the red-brown branches of the pre- 
ceding year. Leaves one to two inches long, ovate or 
ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, 3-nerved. Racemes springing 
from the opposite leaf-scars of the branches, two or three 
together, all female, or one male, one and a half to three 
inches long, erect or spreading, strict or slightly curved, 
very shortly peduncled, rarely solitary and terminating a 
leafing shoot; peduncle clothed with opposite ovate 
(rarely leafy) green bracts, a sixth to a quarter of an inch 
long. Male racemes more slender, at length drooping ; 
flowers shortly pedicelled. Calyx of five small ovate acute 
