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



geminis, axillaribus, 3-cliotomo-ramosis, et laxe divaricatis, 

 pedunculis pedicellisque gracilibus parce pubescentibus, calyce 

 corollaque glabris. — Ins. Philip. — v. s. in herb. Hook, et Liadl. 

 (Cuming, 891). ;-l 



The leaves are about ^~ inches long and IJ inch broad, ori*li 

 petiole 5 lines in length; the panicles are about 1^ inch long, 

 the peduncle and its widely spreading branchlets being long, 

 slender, and nearly glabrous ; the persistent calyx is smooth, 

 with five small teeth ; the petals are linear and thin in texture ; 

 these in the greater number of instances, together with the sta- 

 mens, are wanting, having fallen away, as almost universally oc- 

 curs in the female flowers of Stemonurus found in herbaria ; and 

 it is probably owing to this circumstance, that Prof. Blume, in 

 his generic character of Platea, states that the female flowers are 

 deficient of corolla and stamens. The stamens are the length 

 of the petals, the filaments being quite free, very compressed 

 and broad at the base, tapering above, thin, and almost mem- 

 branaceous in texture, somewhat inflexed at their summit, where 

 they are terete and afiixed near the dorsal sinus of the anthers, 

 which are oblong, 2-lobed, bifid and sagittate at base, and emar- 

 ginated at the apex; the lobes are membranaceous, opened by a 

 longitudinal fissure, the cells being quite void. The ovarium is 

 cylindrical, as long as the stamens, and crowned with a sessile 

 5-lobed pulvinated disk, which is slightly umbilicated in the 

 centre, where a short prominence is seen, this being the withered 

 style and stigma : its single cell contains two large suspended 

 ovules. It is worthy of remark, that in all the flowers retaining 

 the corolla, I could find no instance in which the petals presented 

 any appearance of opening, so that it is very probable that these, 

 together with the stamens, in falling away retain the cylindrico- 

 cupular form they present in the bud. 



Sarcostigma. 



'vThe following obseiTations on the structure and afiinities of 

 Sarcostigma were completed in readiness for the press, when the 

 last part of the ' Plantse Javanicse Rariores ' made its appearance : 

 in that important work we are favoured with an interesting ac- 

 count and an excellent figure of a new species of this genus 

 from Java. The remarks there off'ered, in regard to the afiinities 

 of Sarcostigma, will be seen to be greatly at variance with my 

 own deductions ; and hence it becomes necessary that I should 

 ofier a few explanatory words on the subject. It would be pre- 

 sumptuous in me to attempt to contravene the inferences there 

 deduced by the most profound botanist of our time, showing the 

 relation which that genus bears to Phytocrene, Nansiatum, and 



