Mr. J. Miers on some genera of the Icacinaceae. 109 



linear: the differences in regard to their relative length and breadth 

 are probably only specific, as we find them to occur in Stemonurus. 

 After desiccation, the flowers oiPhlebocalymna appear of ah orange 

 colour, which is probably retained from the living state ; they 

 are somewhat more transparent and agglutinated at their edges 

 than in Stemonurus, the calyx is more distinctly 5-lobed, and the 

 segments are imbricated in aestivation, a feature also recorded by 

 Blume in his character oiPlatea : in Griffiths's plant from Mergui, 

 the calyx is furnished at its base, at the point of its articulation 

 with the pedicel, with a distinct bract. In this plant, and in 

 another from Moulmein, the flowers are axillary, and almost fas- 

 ciculated in a very short raceme, but in Cuming's plant from 

 Manilla, the inflorescence is in a spreading panicle, with numerous 

 flowers upon lengthened pedicels. Blume, in his generic cha- 

 racter of Platea, states that the flowers are dioecious, and that in 

 the female flowers the corolla and stamens are altogether wanting. 

 The same might almost be said of several species of Stemonurus^ 

 for as soon as the fertility of the ovarium is clearly discernible, 

 the petals and stamens will be found to have fallen off, and from 

 analogy we may safely conclude the same to have occurred in 

 Platea. Mr. Griffiths in his manuscript note on Phlebocalymna 

 says, " genus novum Icacinearum, familia singularis ob albumen 

 in lobos divaricatos et tegumen seminis vasculosissimum : " this 

 remark can hardly apply to his proposed genus, of which it does 

 not appear that he had seen the seed, and it is more than pro- 

 bable that the allusion was made to Bursinopetalumy a genus 

 placed by Dr. Wight (Icon. tab. 956) in the Olacacede, of which 

 the Icacinece had been universally held to be a tribe : in that 

 genus, by the growth of the placentary column of the abortive 

 cells, and its protrusion into the cavity of the fertile cell, the 

 albumen becomes hippocrepically folded, and somewhat divided 

 into two lobes, in the manner clearly demonstrated in the figure 

 referred to. I have elsewhere shown that Bursinopetalum belongs 

 to the Aquifoliacece. Blume in his ' Mus. Bot. Lugd.^ gives a 

 new generic character of Platea : this will require some modifica- 

 tion, if we include in it Phlebocalymna, and with this view I 

 now offer the following diagnosis : — ^»4\vo^<^ 'io giyJOB'ifiii'j 



Platea, Blume. Phlebocalymna, Griffiths. — Flores hermaphro- 



diti vel saspissime abortu polygami : an unquam vere dioici ? 



Calyx brevissimus, cupularis, 5-dentatus, dentibus in prseflora- 

 !, tionem imbricatis, persistens, sed non augescens. Petala 5, 



linearia, carnosula, sestivatione valvata, apice propendenti in- 



> flexo, marginibus rorido-glandulosis, imo in tubum laxe ad- 



,; haji'eotibus, e medio hbera et reiiexa, in flor. fern, fertil. cito 



decidua. Stamina 5, cum petalis inserta, iisdem alterna, ///a- 



