BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 347 
to the Faculty. We should be happy if any one who has the inclination 
and the opportunity would test the fact. 
De Candolle’s Prodromus. 
We are happy to inform our readers that the fourteenth volume of 
this most important work will be in the press this present month, and 
will commence with Dr. Meisner's Polygonacee, ihe manuscript of 
Which indeed has been prepared these eighteen months. This learned 
and indefatigable botanist has also finished the elaboration of the Pro- 
teacee and Tymelee ; so that the printing of those families can, and 
we hope will, go on without interruption. 
. Note on CLUSIACEZ ; by Mr. Spruce. 
In a late number of the * Morning Chronicle’ I saw an account of a 
paper read by Mr. Miers, at a meeting of the Linnean Society, on the 
Structure of the seeds of the Clusiacee. I did not know previously — 
that any doubt existed on this subject. Undoubtedly the cylindrical _ 
mass is the radicle, or, more properly speaking, the caulicle, and the - 
two minute parallel plates at the upper extremity are the cotyledons. = 
I enclose germinating seeds of a Clusia, which I picked out of a de- - 
cayed fruit a few days ago, under a tree of what seemed Clusia speciosa, 
Mart.; but I was unable to get down a branch, to enable me to decide - 
With certainty. The mode of germination of the terrestrial Clusia, in — 
their native forests, is the following :— The fruits (five- to twelve- 
valved) burst open in a stellated manner, usually before falling off the 
tree, .the ‘fleshy valves spreading at a greater or less angle, but not : 
rolled or bent back on the peduncle, as in the Tovomite. When they - 
are detached, their shuttlecock-form causes them always to alight on 
the ground with their base downwards. They are now visited by ants, 
which speedily eat away the red aril of the seeds,* and the latter begin - 
to germinate, while still attached to the fruit. The caulicle bursts. : 
Me iir ere re e emer ny tercera 
of the epiphytal C/usiacee are swallowed by birds, and thus deposited on the branches 
of trees in the same way as those of Loranthacee. ——— ; 
