Mr. J. Miers on the Affinities of the Olacacese. 163 



as will be made apparent when I describe two new genera ap- 

 pertaining to the former family. Don first suggested this 

 separation, but he does not appear to have been aware of all the 

 facts that prove their want of identity. In the Symplocacece we 

 find a calyx of five imbricate sepals, a corolla with very imbricated 

 aestivation, numerous stamens, placed in many series upon the 

 corolla, having ovate 2-lobed anthers, without intervening con- 

 nective, an inferior ovarium, showing a strict union of its carpels 

 into five complete cells, and seeds of very different structure. In 

 the Styracece, on the contrary, we have a tubular calyx with an 

 almost entire border, petals with a distinctly valvate aestivation, 

 stamens in a single series, generally double the number of the 

 petals, and therefore by turns, opposite and alternate with them ; 

 here the anthers are linear, dorsally affixed upon a very fleshy 

 connective ; the ovarium is superior, wholly free from the calyx, 

 with a remarkable pulvinate depressed epigynous gland; it is 

 3-locular at base, the dissepiments separating from the axis about 

 its middle, and gradually disappearing at the apex, where it is 

 completely unilocular, the base of the style being hollow, and 

 continuous with the cavity of the cell ; the cionosperm rises in 

 the axis above the point of the separation of the dissepiments, 

 and to the axile column are attached three fleshy placentae, each 

 bearing several ovules (about nine) in three rows, the upper 

 series being erect, the middle horizontal, the lowermost suspended, 

 the summit of each ovule being borne upon a cupshaped stro- 

 phiole, as in the Celastracece : of these only a single seed becomes 

 matured, as in Olacacece ; it differs however in being erect, and 

 showing at its base the remains of the abortive ovules : the radicle 

 of the embryo, enclosed in fleshy albumen, is directed to the 

 point of attachment, as in Olacacece, but owing to the different 

 position of the seed, it of course assumes a contrary direction, 

 and points to the base of the fruit; the cotyledons are much 

 larger and more foliaceous than in Olacacece. These points of 

 structure are evidently quite opposite to what we find in the 

 Symplocacece, and it is surprising they could ever have been 

 associated together. The characters of the Styracece are how- 

 ever analogous to those of the Olacacece, and there exists a very 

 close affinity between the two families. The corolla is in no 

 degree more gamopetalous in Styracece than it is in Olacacece, 

 for in both cases the petals are valvate in aestivation, at first 

 cohere slightly by their margins, and finally separate nearly to 

 the base, where a short portion always remains agglutinated, by 

 the adhesion of a very thin annulus, from which the stamens 

 originate; but upon removing this annulus the petals will be 

 found to separate easily, and not to be really confluent into a 

 gamopetalous tube. We also see in Liriosma the same tendency 



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