46 MR. J. MIERS ON THE FAMILY OF TRIURIACEE. 
From these facts we may safely conclude, that neither the Aphylleia of Champion, nor 
Cuming’s speeimen from the Indian Archipelago, nor Purdie’s from Venezuela, differ gene- 
rically from the Sciaphila tenella of Blume, a very similar plant from Java, long before 
described in the ‘ Bijdragen’ of that celebrated botanist. 
Being compelled to impugn the accuracy of the observations of others, it is essential 
that I should detail minutely those facts which alone can guide us to a knowledge of the 
true affinities of these singular plants, and I therefore proceed to describe the structure of 
the seed, as I have found it in Sciaphila. Captain Champion, in the memoir above quoted, 
figures and describes the embryo as a comparatively large body lying across, and near the 
vertex of the albumen, with a pointed radicle as long as the cotyledonary portion; but the 
whole seed, he says, “ is so minute, and difficult of dissection, that it is hard to say whether 
the cotyledons are one or two;” the radicle, he adds, “is slightly curved, and pointed 
towards the hilum; the albumen, which is originally liquid, becomes hard as the seed 
ripens, and usually causes the testa to burst on the side opposite the raphe.” Gardner 
adds, “ The radicle is short, conical, and of a brownish colour; the cotyledons elliptical, 
compressed, and white ;” the embryo lies “ on the outside of a thin fleshy albumen, or but 
slightly covered with it, on the side of the seed opposite the raphe, nearly straight, and 
with the radicle directed towards the hilum,” which he states to be on the dorsal face of 
the seed. The albumen, which according to Gardner is “fleshy,” is said by Champion to 
be somewhat “ corneous ” in Hyalisma, and “ rather hard” in Sciaphila. It is remarkable 
that such circumstantial details are not only inconsistent with each other, but decidedly at 
variance with the structure of the seed, as I have observed it. 
My observations upon the seed of Sciaphila are to the following effect. The outer coat 
is a distinct utricle, composed of cellular tissue with intervening merenchyma, the inner 
the outer surface formed of large, prominent, sub- 
obovoid body, connected only by 
body, in the dried state, is marked by several (ab 
longitudinal ribs, with intervening hollow spaces, whi icular and transp 
the ribs being connected wi ee = ae 
Supported and suspended. "The testa of the included oval 
p marked by several longitudinal lines, with very numerous 
: » torming an almost scalariform structure; it is hard, testa- 
ceous, and lined Within by a fine ` T , , 
smallest trace of any Aisin > ansparent, reticulated, adhering membrane; but not the 
