AND PECULIAR FORM OF THE EMBRYO IN THE CLUSIACE.E. 249 



I have already alluded to the existence of two somewhat different developments of the 

 seed in the Clusiacece ; the foregoing description affords an example of the one which 

 includes all cases (as in the tribe Clusiece) where a number of seeds are formed in each 

 cell of the ovary, and where they are attached in a horizontal position by their base to 

 the axile placenta. The other development occurs in those instances (as in the tribes 

 Tovomitecs and Garciniece) where only one seed is formed in each cell, and where this is 

 fixed to the axile column in a vertical position by its ventral face. For reasons that will 

 be offered in another place, I propose to exclude the Moronobece and Calophyllea from 

 the Order. In the first case (the Clusiece), the raphe, enclosed within the fleshy arillus, 

 is seen to extend from the base to the apex of the seed, and is free from the testa ; in the 

 second instance the testa is thinner and more membranaceous in texture, and enveloped 

 in an overlapping arillus, which is thicker and more membranaceous in substance ; it has 

 a large hilum upon its ventral face ; the raphe, less discernible, is imbedded in the sub- 

 stance of the testa, where it spreads into numerous branching nervures, conspicuously 

 extending over its surface : in the Garciniece we find a similar testa, enveloped in an 

 entire, copious, more or less mucilaginous pulp ; tolerably good figures of this develop- 

 ment are given by Gsertner in plate 105, illustrating the seeds of Garcinia, and in several 

 plates of Dr. Wight's ' Icones.' Were it not for the explanation afforded by the analysis 

 of the Clusiece, the structure of the embryo in the other tribes, Tovomitece and Garciniece, 

 would not be so easily understood. During my residence in Brazil, I examined in a living 

 state the fruit and seeds of different species of Tovomita, Commirhoea, and more especially 

 of a plant which I have called Lamprophyllum Icetum, the type of a genus very distinct from 

 Garcinia, and comprising numerous species of South American and West Indian origin, 

 among them the Calophyllum Calaba of Linnaeus, and others associated with Garcinia 

 and Calophyllum, which last genus I consider to be foreign to the Order. The analysis of 

 the seed of Lamprophyllum will afford a good example of the second mode of development 

 above referred to. The drupe is here about the size of that of Calophyllum Calaba, as 

 figured by Jacquin (Stirp. Amer. tab. 165), and contains generally two, or often by abortion 

 a single seed, about the size of the kernel of a hazel-nut, which is enveloped in a thick 

 mucilaginous pulpy arillus : the testa is thin and brittle, marked by numerous veins 

 branching from the ventral hilum, and it contains a solid nucleus of a firm and somewhat 

 fleshy consistence, exhibiting in the apex a minute prominent nipple of the size of a very 

 small pin's head, seated in a deep hollow depression, a little below the summit towards 

 the ventral face ; near the base, somewhat on the dorsal side, is seen another smaller 

 speck, which is green and shining, exactly like that described in the nucleus of the 

 Clusiece. On making a longitudinal section, the main body of the nucleus is seen to be of 

 a pale sulphur colour, studded with numerous small oblong ducts, which, when thus cut, 

 copiously exude a deep yellow viscous juice : a slender terete neorhiza, exactly resembling 



because we see in the Clusiece that the neorhiza is traceable only to the nascent point of the plumule, that the cotyledons 

 are wholly exserted from and an extension of the main body, and that many of the striae or long tubular ducts, which 

 extend from the base to the apex of the mass of the nucleus, are carried without interruption along the outer face of 

 the cotyledons, proving the continuity of the one with the other ; for were it of the nature of albumen, it would be in 

 the form of an investiture of the embryo, not a prolongation of it. 



