Mr. J. Miers on some genera of the Icacinacese, 31 



Its most marked peculiarity consists in the character of its 

 stamens ; the filaments sometimes shorter, often longer than the 

 petals, are generally very broad, extremely thick and fleshy, 

 obtuse at their summit with a small apical point, to which the 

 anthers are attached, and they have a somewhat prominent in- 

 ternal keel down the middle : the margins of their broad summit 

 and the upper part of the keel are fringed with long transparent 

 white hairs, clavate at their extremity and bent, so as to form a 

 crest over the anthers : from this character both the names of 

 Beauvois and Blume originated. The flowers, sometimes herma- 

 phrodite, are frequently polygamous in the same plant, that is 

 to say, either the anthers are void of pollen, or the ovarium is 

 deficient of any ovules, or both these imperfections occur at the 

 same time : it does not appear to me that they are constantly 

 unisexual, as generally stated. The analysis of the structure of 

 this genus has been attended with much difficulty, because of 

 the frequent abortion of some of its parts, especially the ovarium, 

 which is often deficient of cells or ovules ; and even when the 

 ovules exist, it is not easy to detect their presence, on account 

 of their extreme minuteness, in an early stage of the flower. I 

 was for a long while unable to solve the anomalies of its struc- 

 ture, and almost gave up the matter in despair, but patient exa- 

 mination at length overcame the difficulties : not one in twenty 

 instances exhibits the smallest trace of an existing ovule, nothing 

 but a fleshy mass appearing to constitute the ovarium, which is 

 always comparatively small : indications of the existence of more 

 cells than one are sometimes observable, but these are not large 

 enough to be well defined ; and even in the case where a single 

 distinct cell exists with two suspended ovules, these are so mi- 

 nute that they might readily be overlooked. After the period of 

 fecundation, however, the petals and stamens fall away, when the 

 ovarium attains a rapid growth, and soon displays itself as an 

 oblong cylindrical body of many times its former dimensions, 

 seated on its small persistent calyx and crowned by a large pul- 

 vinate disk : it now unmistakeably exhibits to the naked eye a 

 single cell containing two large suspended ovules and conforming 

 to all the usual characters of the order. With one exception I 

 have never met with flowers in an intermediate stage, and it is 

 not therefore surprising that Stemonurus and Gomphandra should 

 have been so long considered as two distinct genera. The nature 

 of the pulviniform gland that forms so prominent a feature on 

 the summit of the ovarium, and which evidently suggested the 

 name given by Dr. Wallich, is not altogether manifest. On 

 making a longitudinal section of a pistillum in its early stage, 

 when it consists of a very small, 4- or 5-lobed, short cylinder, it 

 will be seen crowned by a fleshy glandular ring of the same 



