some disposition to anastomose with the costa. Among 
these leaves the flower appears, solitary or sometimes two 
together, small, and upon a very short footstalk. Calyx _ 
cup-shaped or nearly hemispherical, persistent, having five 
small but sharp teeth, glabrous. Petals five, oval or obo- 
vate, slightly concave, yellowish, spreading, united by their 
bases to the base of the column. Stamens about twelve; 
the filaments combined into a cylindrical column or tube: 
Anthers broadly oval, two-celled, orange-coloured. Pistil 
solitary : Germen ovate with one or two pendulous ovules : 
Style thickish : Stigma two-lobed, large and decurrent on 
one side, papillose, white. The scarcely mature fruit is a 
dicoccous, or by abortion a monococcous and oblique, sub- 
drupaceous, slightly downy fruit, with an apiculus formed 
of the persistent base of the style. Nut, if it may be so 
called, chartaceous, indehiscent. Seed suspended from the 
inner margin of the cell with a very short funitculus, albu- 
minose : Albumen fleshy. Embryo large, green, immersed, 
curved or somewhat conduplicate, the cylindrical radicle — 
being turned towards the hilum: Cotyledons large, thin, 
almost foliaceous, longitudinally waved. 
Hitherto nothing appears to have been known of this 
singular plant, except through the imperfect figure and de- 
scription of Forster above quoted, who discovered the 
plant in New Zealand. Mr. Arran CunnineuAm found it 
in the same country, and introduced it to the Kew Gardens, 
from which flowering specimens were sent to us in May 
1833, and young fruit in the following July, by W.'T. Arron, 
Esq. It is indeed a shrub that has little to recommend it 
on the score of beauty, but much from its rarity and struc- ~ 
ture. De Canpotte has referred it to Bompacea, to which 
it hasa similarity in the column of the stamens. Mr. Cun- 
_ NINGHAM thinks it may perhaps be allied to a section of 
Byrrveriacem, DC., and not far removed from HermMaAnntA, 
or from Waxreria, in which the fruit is reduced to a single- 
seeded carpellum; and that the generally pentadelphous 
_ Stamens, and the seeds usually enveloped in a cottony 
wool or pulp in Bomsacez forbid its union with that Order. 
Tn some respects, there appears to be an affinity with Eu- 
_ PHORBIACEA, an idea that has also occurred to Mr. CUNNING- 
HAM, as well as to Mr. Donn: and there, not, however, 
without great hesitation, I have placed it. 
I} 
= ok 1. 2. Flowers. 3, 4. Pistil. 5. Section of a Germen. 6, 7, 8 Fruits. 
- The same as fig. 7, from which a portion of the coat of the Nut 1s Te — 
moved. 10. Transverse, and 11, vertical Secti ete 1 
bryo: magnified, 1, vertical Sections of a Fruit. — 
