XIV. Observations on some Genera of Plant connected with the Flora of 
Guiana. By Grorce Bentam, Esq., F.L.S. 
Read June 19th, 1838. 
1. Sympiocos, CIPONIMA, STEMMATOSIPHON, ALSTONIA and Hopea. 
IN Pohrs Plantarum Brasilia Icones, vol. ii. pl. 157, 158, and 159, three 
plants are figured under the name of Stemmatosiphon, and referred to Meliacea, 
on account of some similarity in the disposition of the stamina and the form 
of the corolla, if considered as polypetalous. Adrien de Jussieu, however, in 
a note added to his excellent memoir on Meliacew (Mém. du Mus. vol. xix. 
p. 152.) adverted to the simple leaves, indefinite stamina, &c., as incompatible 
with that family; but, misled by several errors in the details of structure 
figured by Pohl, was unable to point out satisfactorily the group to which it 
should be removed“. On the occasion of determining the plants collected in 
Guiana by Mr. Schomburgk, I was struck with the apparent affinity of one of 
them to the specimens of Pohl's Stemmatosiphons, which I had obtained at 
Vienna, and was led into an examination of that genus, which proved to be 
identical with the Linnean Symplocos, as first constituted, although differing 
in many points from many of the other species which have since been asso- 
ciated with it. 
The genus Symplocos was originally founded by Jacquin, and adopted by 
Linnæus, for the S. martinicensis, which was thus characterized by Linnæus 
in his Genera Plantarum: “ Perianthium monophyllum, semiquinquefidum, 
parvum, laciniis subrotundis erectis. Petala quinque, oblonga, obtusa, erecta, 
superne patentissima. Filamenta plurima, subulata, plana, petalis breviora, 
* The remarkable circumstance in particular of a trifid stigmate, with a quadrilocular ovarium, 
figured in each of the three plates, does not exist in any flower that I have dissected of either of the 
species. 
