38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Guettai'decs. as having pendulous (more correctly, suspended) ovules. 

 In G. elliptica, the only other species of the genus which I have with 

 mature fruit, the embryo is similar to that of G. speciosa. The cotyle- 

 dons, although difficult to separate in the mature seed, are plainly dis- 

 cernible in rather unripe ones ; they are very short, oval, thin, and of 

 no greater diameter than the radicle at that end. 



That the seed of Thnonius is exalbuminous had been long ago ascer- 

 tained by jVIr. Brown, who directed my attention to the fact. 



The occasional absence of albumen in this family is not very sur- 

 prising. Those systematists who regard the difference between a de- 

 posit of nourishing matter around the emhryo and in the embryo as one 

 of very high taxonomic importance, should consider how large is the 

 number of natural orders in which the two modes are now known to 

 coexist. 



From the indications now given, the true Guettardece may be char- 

 acterized as follows : — 



Subtr, GUETTARDE^. CoroUiB lobi ssstivatione imbricati, raro- 

 valvati. Ovarium bi-multiloculare : ovula in loculis solitaria suspensa. 

 Drupa bi - plurilocularis vel di - pleiopyrena. Semina e funiculo crasso 

 obturamentiformi appensa : albumen nullum vel parcum. Radicula 

 longa : cotyledones parvi. 



"We have a new Guettai'dreous plant, possibly a Guettarda, from the 

 Feejee Islands, of which blossoms are wanting for the determination 

 of the genus. Of the following, we possess rather better materials, but 

 still the genus is uncertain. 



Chomelia ? Sandwicensis ( Gray, in Expl. Exped. ined.) : ra- 

 mis junioribus pubescentibus ; foliis glaberrimis oblongo-ovatis acumi- 

 natis basi rotundatis ; fructu dipyreno globoso calycis lobis majusculis 

 ovalibus obtusissimis recurvis coronato. — Oahu, Sandwich Islands. 



When better known, this may prove to be a new generic type. But 

 it is more likely to fall into Chomelia, or else into Giceftai'della of Ben- 

 tham, which is hardly sufficiently distinguished by the more numerous 

 ovarian cells. Chomelia rihesioides, Benth., occasionally exhibits a 

 4-cclled putamen, and the pyrenos of Guettardella Chinensis are fre- 

 quently consolidated in the same manner ; — just as in Arctostaphylos, 

 in which the pyrense are either discrete or variously concrete in the 

 same species. The veinlets of the leaves, especially of the upper sur- 

 face, form minute and elegant transverse reticulations. The fruit is 

 that of a Bohea reduced to two pyrense ; the seed has a similar plug- 



