Bibliographical Notices, 297 



its structure and classification, both in the Linnsean and natural 

 system. " The description of Gunnera macrophylla and the accom- 

 panying figure," he observes, " abundantly prove that the affinities 

 of the genus have been altogether misunderstood, and that it bears 

 at most: but a distant relation to Urticete, from which it differs in 

 almost every important feature except its solitary seed. It seems 

 indeed surprising that a genus known to possess * germen inferum,' 

 should have been so long referred to an order in which, even where 

 a partial adhesion takes place of the calyces inter se, as in Artocarpus, 

 not the smallest tendency exists to their adhesion with the ovaria. 

 But when to this we add the presence of distinct petals, the removal 

 of the genus not only from the order, but also from the class to 

 which that order is referred, is clearly indicated." On the subject 

 of its real affinities, Mr. Bennett adds that Mr. Brown communicated 

 to him in 1835 some highly curious and interesting views, into the 

 detail of which he was precluded from entering by Mr. Brown's 

 absence from England while this article was passing through the 

 press ; and expresses a hope that he will himself hereafter make 

 them fully known. A synopsis of the known species of Gunnera 

 completes the account of this interesting plant. 



A curious Piperaceous genus, to which Dr. Blume has given the 

 name of Zippelia, chiefly remarkable on account of the glochidiate 

 prickles with which its berries are muricated throughout, forms the 

 subject of the sixteenth article. In it Mr. Bennett makes some ob- 

 servations on the question, now no longer doubtful, of the monoco- 

 tyledonous or dicotyledonous character of the embryo of the genus 

 Piper ; and notices some of the obscure genera which have been de- 

 scribed as belonging to this restricted family. 



Tetrameles nudifiora, the only known species of a genus named 

 and characterized by Mr. Brown in the Appendix to Denham's Nar- 

 rative, forms the subject of the succeeding article. Along with 

 Datisca it constitutes " an order very different from any other yet 

 established," to which Mr. Brown has given the name of Datiscece. 

 The difference between the two genera in habit and in some minor 

 points of structure is considerable ; but in ail essential particulars 

 they are most intimately allied. Mr. Bennett incidentally observes 

 that the supposed second species of Datisca, described by Linnaeus 

 under the name of Datisca hirta, belongs unquestionably to the genus 

 Rhus, the specimen in the Linnsean Herbarium being most probably 

 only a contracted specimen of the common Rhus typhina. 



In the next article, under the head of He/icia Javanica, Mr. Ben- 

 nett illustrates the history and characters of a Proteaceous genus, 



