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



to the adhesion of its parts, carried even to a greater extent than 

 in any instance I have found in Styracecs ; and in Schopfia, which 

 is justly included by Mr. Bentham in the Olacacece, we see a 

 still greater tendency to a confluence of its parts. If therefore 

 the Olacacece have been placed by all botanists among the pleio- 

 petalous orders, there can be no reason why the Styracea should 

 be considered as a monopetalous family. The ovarium in Sty- 

 racece is stated by most authors to be half inferior, but I have 

 observed that at an early stage, and even after the fall of the 

 flower, it is quite free, although partly surrounded by the tube 

 of the calyx ; and if it become subsequently agglutinated to the 

 latter, it is probably only at a late period, as we find to occur in 

 Liriosma. 



The Ebenacea, by most botanists, have been held to be closely 

 allied to the Styracece, but this does not appear to me quite 

 evident. Though placed among Corollijiorae, it appears to me 

 that they should rather be arranged among the polypetalous 

 groups, for their petals are often quite distinct, or when united, 

 cohere so slightly as to be separated by a little force. The sta- 

 mens, although sometimes adnate to the corolla, are most gene- 

 rally free, or at least originate in a fleshy disk, which sometimes 

 assumes the form of a very short hypogynous tube. In one 

 Brazilian species of Diospyros, I have found the albumen in the 

 seed to be distinctly ruminated, as in the Anonacece, the embryo 

 having a terete radicle and broad foliaceous cotyledons, much 

 resembling in structure that of Monodora. Cargillia, according 

 to Mr. Brown, a genus of this family, so nearly approaches the 

 Anonacece, that the typical species was described by Jacquin as 

 the Anona microcarpa (Fragm. xl. tab. 44. fig. 7), and by Dunal 

 as the Monodora microcarpa. In the Brazilian species of Dios- 

 pyros above alluded to, the seeds are imbedded in pulp, and 

 covered by a mucilaginous arillus : they are also compressed, 

 with a linear, basal, and somewhat lateral umbilicus, forming a 

 deep marginal furrow, into the bottom of which cavity the ex- 

 tremity of the radicle subtends, as in several genera of the Ano- 

 nacece*. Monotheca and Reptonia, placed in Theophrastece, appear, 

 from the descriptions given of them, to have little in common 

 with that family, and to belong rather to Styracece, if we consider 

 the basal placentations, which I have shown to exist in this last- 



* A precisely similar structure is found in Diospyros Candolleana, ac- 

 cording to Wight's 'Icones,' plate 1222, fig. 8 to 11. In several other 

 instances in this family, the albumen is depicted in the same work as being 

 distinctly ruminated, so that this may probably be a general character of 

 the order, although so remarkable a feature is not noticed in any botanical 

 work. Gaertner however hints at the fact, but only in one instance out of 

 the many species of Diospyros he describes ; D. tetrasperma, which has 

 its " albumen radiato-striatum, quasi fibrosum." 



