Mr. J. Miers on the genus Liriosma. 103 



XII. — Contributions to the Botany of South America. 

 By John Miers, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. 



Liriosma. 



This genus, proposed by Poppig, and figured in his ' Nov. Gen/ 

 tab. 239, for a species found by him near the Rio Negro, in Bra- 

 zilian Guiana, is yet but imperfectly known : its characters there 

 given are in many respects incorrect or incomplete. That bo- 

 tanist referred it to Olacacea, it having been at first placed in 

 Styracece by Endlicher. Two other species were soon afterwards 

 announced, for which another new genus, under the name of 

 Hypocarpus, was proposed by Prof. A. DeCandolle, in his ( Prodr.' 

 viii. 245, which he considered to be more related to Styracece ; 

 but he was soon undeceived, as in the addenda to the same vo- 

 lume, p. 673, he recognised its identity with Liriosma. From a 

 plant which I found near Rio de Janeiro in 1830, and which I 

 then examined, I am enabled to complete the generic character, 

 as far as regards the details of the fruit and seed, and at the same 

 time, I now add my analysis of the floral structure of L. Gardne- 

 riana. Both Poppig and DeCandolle describe the ovarium in 

 this genus to be half imbedded in the adhering calyx ; I find on 

 the contrary that although the lower moiety of the ovarium is 

 glabrous, and closely invested by the fleshy cup of the calyx, it 

 is yet perfectly free from it, even for a considerable period after 

 the fall of the corolla ; the ovarium now increases more than the 

 calyx, but at length the latter assumes the greatest increment, 

 and at last wholly incloses it, becoming agglutinated with it, 

 and converted into an enveloping pulp, leaving a small umbilical 

 hollow in the summit and showing there the remains of its epi- 

 gynous gland. The presence of a fleshy epigynous gland upon 

 an inferior ovarium is a circumstance of the most ordinary oc- 

 currence, where it is held to be an abortive whorl of stamens ; 

 its existence upon a perfectly superior ovarium was therefore 

 considered to be an impossibility, or when noticed it was always 

 described as a mere basal enlargement of the style ; but I have 

 shown that in Hyoscyamus this anomaly really exists, and have 

 since met with the same occurrence in several other instances. 

 In the present case, its development is most decidedly marked, 

 under the form of a prominent, rounded, fleshy disk, distinct in 

 colour and texture, and exterior to the true pericarpial mem- 

 branes. It is still more prominent in Schopfia, and is found 

 with a greater or less degree of development in most of the ge- 

 nera of the Olacacea and Santalacece. The internal structure of 

 the ovarium accords with the character pointed out by Mr. Ben- 

 tham, as a prominent feature of one of his tribes of the Olacacea, 



