[ 243 ] 



XXVIII. Observations on the Structure of the Seed and Peculiar Form of the Embryo 

 in the Clusiacese. By John Miers, Esq., F.B.S., F.L.S. fyc. 



R*ad June 20 and November 21, 1854. 



1 HE object of this paper is to present to the notice of the Linnean Society some remarks 

 upon the seed of the Clusiacece, and to call the attention of botanists more especially to 

 the structure of its embryo, the nature of which has been hitherto quite misunderstood. 

 During my residence in Brazil, I made several observations upon the plants of this family : 

 the many novel facts thus collected have since induced me to extend this inquiry, with a 

 view of determining the true affinities and limits of the Order, and of establishing the 

 characters of its several genera, concerning which our present data are greatly confused 

 and imperfect. The evidence upon these more general points will, however, be reserved 

 for a future occasion ; my attention, as a matter of primary importance, being first 

 confined to a consideration of the seminal structure of the family. 



The earliest description of these features I find in Jussieu's ' Genera Plantarum,' 

 p. 255, published in 1789, where, in his ordinal character of the Guttiferce, he simply 

 states that its embryo is erect, without albumen, and with hard corky cotyledons (lobis 

 suberoso-callosis) . 



The next mention is in 1791, by Gsertner, who in his justly celebrated work * De Fruc- 

 tibus,' &c, plate 105, figures, with his usual fidelity, his analysis of three species of 

 Garcinia ; these he describes (vol. ii. p. 105) as having a coriaceous testa, a thin integu- 

 ment, and a fleshy solid nucleus, which exhibits in its axis an apparently different 

 development of a terete, sometimes compressed, lanceolate form, the whole nucleus con- 

 stituting a compact inseparable mass : from these facts, contrary to the opinion of Jussieu, 

 he infers that the great body of the nucleus is a large albumen, and that the axile portion 

 is a pseudo-mono-cotyledonous embryo, closely united together in one solid body. 



Richard in 1811, in his excellent memoir on Endorhizal embryos *, in order to mark 

 the difference between the embryonal structure of the Monocotyledones, and certain 

 peculiar macropodal forms observed in the seeds of some dicotyledonous plants, described 

 and figured the structure of the embryos of Pekea (Caryocar) tuberculosa and Clusia 

 palmicida. The former has been copied in every botanical work published since that 

 time, in order to serve as an example of that peculiar development, but the latter has 

 never been alluded to, or mentioned, in any such work, that I can find ; indeed the fact 

 appears to have escaped the recollection of every botanist who has written upon Guttife- 

 rous plants, except Jussieu, although it would have been important to have borne that 

 circumstance in remembrance. Richard there correctly describes the seed of Clusia as 

 being enveloped in pulp ; one extremity of its brittle testa is pierced with an aperture, 

 beneath which the nucleus exhibits a small protuberance cleft in two, which he states to 

 be two minute cotyledons, the principal mass of the embryo being an enormous radicle ; 

 he points out the existence of an inner integument, one end of which is attached to 



* Ann. du Mus. xvii. 456. tab. 9 & 10. 

 VOL. XXI. 2 K 



