MR. J. MIERS ON THE FAMILY OF TRIURIACEjE. 45 



Mr. Gardner, who at first was much struck with their resemblance to Triuris and his Pel- 

 tophyllum ; hut on account of their manifest affinity to Sciaphila he renounced that idea, 

 and in some observations which he annexed to Captain Champion's memoir, he suggested 

 their position as being in Artocarpece, that being the station assigned to Sciaphila by 

 Endlicher. Captain Champion, on the contrary, was more inclined to place them in TJrti- 

 cacece, among the Morece, because of their aggregated carpels on a common receptacle. 



The first plant described by Captain Champion is the Uyalisma ianthina ; it greatly 

 resembles Triuris liyalina in habit, and agrees with it, and with Hexuris, in being dioecious. 

 The perianthium is cup-shaped at its base, with the border divided into eight pointed seg- 

 ments of equal size, being valvate in aestivation, with the apical points inflected in a ver- 

 tical umbilicus. The male flowers have four stamens placed opposite each alternate seg- 

 ment, and almost sessile upon a fleshy prominent disc, as in Triuris ; but the lobes of the 

 anthers, instead of being distinct, are here confluent, at first four-celled, but afterwards 

 bursting into two valves, by a transverse line across the apex on one of the cross pollini- 

 ferous dissepiments. The ovaria are numerous and aggregated in the female flowers, but 

 the style, instead of being subterminal and sublateral, as in Triuris and Hexuris, is here 

 nearly basal upon the ventral face. The whole plant, as in those genera, is covered with 

 prominent vesicles, forming a bullulato-cellular epidermis. The more important con- 

 sideration of the structure of its seed will be noticed in a subsequent page. 



The second plant described by Captain Champion, under the name of Aphylleia eru- 

 bescens, is very similar in general habit and structure to Uyalisma ianthina, differing only 

 in the number of the segments of the perianthium, which are six, as in Sciaphila, with six 

 stamens opposite to them in the male flowers. The carpels in the female flower do not 

 differ much from those of Uyalisma, excepting that the style is shorter and ciliately fringed, 

 not long, simple and pointed. In all the pistilliferous flowers I have seen they are con- 

 stantly somewhat polygamous, with three or fewer stamens, placed opposite the alternate 

 segment, among the outer row of carpels ; but whether they are polliniferous or other- 

 wise, I have not been able to determine. The structure of the seed is exactly that of Uya- 

 lisma. 



In Sir William Hooker's herbarium I found a plant of Mr. Cuming^s collection from 

 the Philippine Islands, that bears a great resemblance to Aphylleia erubescens : like it, 

 the perianthium is 6-cleft, but the segments are not altogether glabrous, being furnished 

 within at the apex with a tuft of long articulated hairs, and the stigma is radiate with 

 similar cilia. I have noticed that all the flowers here are hermaphrodite, the three sta- 

 mens being intermixed with the carpels, as in Captain Champion's plant above mentioned. 

 The fruit is utricular, and of similar structure. 



In the same herbarium is another plant, found by Purdie in Venezuela ; it agrees with 

 the two plants last mentioned in the form of its perianthium, and in having its flowers 

 hermaphrodite, that is to say, with only one or two stamens, placed on the margin of a 

 clustered heap of carpels : here, however, the segments are alternately somewhat narrower, 

 the broader segments only having ciliate margins, but all are furnished at the apex inter- 

 nally with long articulated hairs, and the segments, as well as the bracts and bracteiform 

 leaves, are marked with long red spots, as in the two preceding species. 



