HOOKER'S 
/ 
JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
E 
AND 
KEW GARDEN MISCELLANY. 
Notes on the American Species of MynisTICA; by 
GEORGE BENTHAM, Esa. 
Five species of American Nutmegs are enumerated in the last edition | 
of Steudel's * Nomenclator,’ but this number must be reduced to four, 
as Martius has shown that the M. Bicuhyba of Schott is identical with 
his own M. officinalis, and I am not aware of any new species having _ 
been since published. The recent discoveries however of Hostmann in 
Surinam, of Gardner and others, and more especially of Spruce, in. 
Brazil, have added no less than nine distinct species, making a total — 
of thirteen South American Myristice, now more or less known*. 
There is some discrepancy in the generic characters as given in 
general works with regard to the male flowers. Endlicher gives the 
number of anthers as six to fifteen, Swartz limits them to three in the 
two American species known to him. To me they appear to vary both. 
. in number and form from three to six or eight (in the American spe- — 
cies), and to afford convenient characters for arranging the species, in 
* I am aware that Kunth, in the seventh volume of the * Nova Genera et Species," 
published a Myristica Orinocensis, omitted by Steudel. He had however only a 
very imperfect male specimen to examine, and it is evident that the structure he 
déseribes is much at variance with all known modifications of Myristica. The bi- - 
valvate involucre, ciliated calyx, free anthers, varying in number, etc., suggest an - 
affinity to Peridium among Éwuphorbiacee, and, to my mind, a probable identity — 
with Schismatopera of Klotzsch. A ene 
VOL. v. Mes 
