Mr. Brown, on the Proteacee of Jussieu. | 35 
Banksia dactyloides (the Conchium dactyloides of Dr. Smith), 
and which has equally escaped Cavanilles and Labillardiere in 
their characters of Hakea. Dr. Smith has more cautiously 
omitted this consideration in his character of that genus, and 
Professor Schrader has accurately described the suture as only 
existing on one side: such fruits then are as truly folliculi as 
those of Grevillea, Rhopala, or Embothrium ; and that the ex- 
istence of a distinct placenta is by no means necessary to con- 
stitute this kind of fruit, is proved even by some genera of Apo- 
cines, to which family this term was first applied. BN 
^: A circumstance occurs in some species of Persoonia to which 
I have met with nothing similar in any other plant: the ovarium 
in this genus, whether it contain one or two ovula, has never 
more than one cell; but in several of the two-seeded species a 
cellular substance is after foecundation interposed between the 
ovula; and this gradually indurating acquires in the ripe fruit 
the same consistence as the putamen itself, from whose sub- 
stance it cannot be distinguished ; and thus a fruit originally of 
one cell becomes bilocular: the cells however are not parallel, as — 
in all those cases where they exist in the unimpregnated ovarium, 
but diverge more or less upwards. | tS 
In all the seeds of this order there is a very manifest CHALAZA, 
which, whatever may be the point of insertion of the seed, is 
always situated at its upper extremity; and I have not been 
able to observe any fasciculus of vessels connecting it with the 
umbilieus in cases where this latter is placed in a different part 
I am not aware of any function being ascribed to the cma- 
LAZA of seeds, except the nutrition of their proper membrane: 
but it appears to me too remarkable a part to be destined for 
this purpose only; and some observations I have made induce 
F 2 me 
