DB. THOMSON ON SEEDS OF BAEEINGTONIA AND CARETA. 47 



to a flat stone and suspended ; it is in a very satisfactory con- 

 dition. 



HooKERiE^. — H. lucens never changes : in winter and summer 

 it is alike beautiful. It is now fruiting pretty freely. 



EoNTiNALE^. — F. antipyretica fails. 



Hepatic^. — Biccia Jiuitans grows in a very interesting way. 

 Targionia Jiypophylla is gone. The MarchanticB grow too freely. 

 JungermannicB : I have had twenty-seven species ; some of them, 

 e. g. J. tomentella, J. ciliaris, J. spinulosa and J. asplenoides, are 

 as beautiful as any plants in the case. Some of the species fruit 

 profusely, pouring out a stream of silvery translucent fruit-stalks, 

 tipped with little shining ebony heads, which, when expanded, 

 show very remarkable hygrometric properties. J. nemoralis is 

 covered with little dark-coloured gemmae. 



JBartramia Salleriana grew last autumn with a fringe of Hyme- 

 nophyllum, with which it was collected near Loch Lomond, and 

 was as round and as finely in fruit as a bush of Mistletoe. 



On the Structure of the Seeds of Barringtonia and Carey a. By 

 Thomas Thomson, Esq., M.D.,r.E.S., F.L.S., Superintendent 

 of the Calcutta Botanical Garden. 



[Read March 17, 1857.] 



The internal structure of the seeds of Barringtonia and Carey a 

 has long been a matter of doubt, and indeed continues to the pre- 

 sent day to be described by different authors very differently, being 

 by some regarded as exalbuminous, while others represent the 

 embryo as lying in the axis of copious albumen. 



The genus Barringtonia originated with Eorster, but two of its 

 species were known to Linnaeus, and referred by him to the genera 

 Mammea and JSugenia respectively. The descriptions of Linnaeus, 

 Porster and Lamarck do not refer to the internal structure ; but 

 as Jussieu* refers the genus to Myrtacecs, an order which he de- 

 scribes as exalbuminous, he seems to imply a similar structure in 

 Barringtonia. 



Gsertnerf (1791) describes Barringtonia as albuminous, but 

 adds that the albumen adheres firmly to the entirely undivided 

 embryo in which cotyledons and radicle are imdistinguishable. 



* Genera, p. 326, t Sem. ii. 97. 



