Mr. Bentuam’s Account of two new Genera allied to Olacineæ. — 675 
another in the cell; the placenta adheres to the side of the cavity next to the 
excentrical style. In Pogopetalum the ovules are placed as in Apodytes, but 
there are three cells, not radiating from the centre of the ovary, but diverging 
from the side next to the excentrical style. : 
In Ximenia, Schepfia, and several species of Olax the ovules taper into a 
long point, which before fecundation is curled upwards in Ximenia. In 
Heisteria they are long and slightly thickened at the extremity. In other 
species of Olax they are ovate. In Opilia and Cansjera they are very mi- 
nute, and look like a hooked point to the placenta. In Apodytes, Leretia 
and Pogopetalum they are short and broad, and remarkably cellular in their 
texture. 
The fruit (which I have only seen ripe in Heisteria, Olax, Schepfia, Cansjera 
and Apodytes, and unripe in Pogopetalum, but which has been described from 
ripe specimens also in Ximenia, Heisteria, Opilia and Gomphandra, and from 
unripe ones in Zcacina) is a drupe with a thin, fleshy, or sometimes nearly dry 
pericarp and a crustaceous or osseous putamen, which is almost always one- 
celled and one-seeded by abortion. It is generally of an oblong, ovoid, or 
nearly globular form, but of a very remarkable, almost kidney shape, in Apo- 
dytes, with a fleshy protuberance from the hollow side. 
'The seed, of the same form as the drupe, fills the cell; the testa is of ex- 
ceeding tenuity, and indeed, in many specimens I have opened, it can scarcely 
be distinguished from the albumen, which fills the seed and is of a fleshy or 
somewhat cartilaginous consistence. In its axis is a narrow cavity, at the 
upper end of which (that is, in relation to the fruit) is a straight embryo, 
usually very short, with a short radicle pointing upwards (with relation to the 
fruit), and ovate or oblong cotyledons. The plumula is inconspicuous. In 
Olax, Heisteria, Schepfa and Cansjera, and probably also in Ximenia and 
Opilia, the placenta becomes combined with the seed, and assumes the form 
of a thin cord or mere furrow up one side. The seed then becomes to all 
appearance erect, attached by a broad umbilicus at the base, the embryo being 
at the opposite end, although, physiologically speaking, the broad umbilicus is 
the base of the placenta, and the real hilum is the extremity of the cord or 
furrow at the opposite end. This structure is plainly indicated in Gertner’s 
figure of Olax scandens (Carpol. Suppl. p. 119. t. 201.), but appears to have been 
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