334 Linnean Society. [June 20, 



mity of the testa, the whole forming, in his own peculiar technology, 

 '' an epispermic antitropal embryo." Mr. Miers states there is one 

 essential error in this otherwise correct description ; that, like other 

 botanists, Richard has mistaken the base for the a})ex of the seed. 

 Jussieu, commenting on these facts in 1813, infers that Clusia can- 

 not belong to Gvttiferce, but must constitute the type of a distinct 

 family near Marcgraaviacece. Choisy, in 1822, in a memoir on the 

 Guttiferce, ascribes in his ordinal character, features different from 

 those of Jussieu, and equally opposed to those of Gsertner. He 

 states that the seeds are without albumen, that the embryo is erect, 

 and that the cotyledons are large, fleshy, either separable, or com- 

 bined in one mass. In Garcinia, he says, the seeds are arillate, and 

 the cotyledons thick and conjoined ; but in Clusia, he concludes that 

 these presumed cotyledons are separable, a feature which no suc- 

 ceeding botanist has verified. He alludes in no way to the very dif- 

 ferent structure of the seed in C/w^ia, as recorded by Richard, although, 

 when stating the separability of the cotyledons in that genus, this 

 idea may probably have been derived from some indistinct recollection 

 of the analysis of that eminent carpologist. In the ' Prodromus' 

 of DeCandolle (1824), the characters given of the Guttiferce. are only 

 a recapitulation of the facts stated by Choisy in the above-mentioned 

 memoir. Cambessedes, in a very able essay published in 1828, 

 affirms that in the Guttiferce the embryo is erect, the cotyledons 

 large, thick, very entire, and united into one mass ; the radicle is very 

 small, of a nipple-like form, while its direction in regard to the point 

 of attachment of the seed is deserving of attention, because this cha- 

 racter (generally of primary importance) is here variable. He then 

 states that in Clusia criuva the radicle is directed to the extremity 

 of the seed farthest removed from the point of its attachment ; he 

 describes the embryo of Clusia and Calophyllum as being erect and 

 inverted, the small mammseform point, which he calls the radicle, 

 being at the apex, or opposite extremity to the basal point of attach- 

 ment, while in Mammea and Mesua the small radicle points in a 

 contrary direction, i. e. to the basal point of attachment. He there- 

 fore erroneously concludes that in this family the embryo is either 

 homotropal or antitropal, or in other words, is sometimes directed to 

 that point of the seed next the hilum, at others towards the opposite 

 extremity. These statements, it will soon be seen, are founded 

 in error. In the following year, M, Cambessedes, in describing the 

 Guttiferous plants collected by A. St. Hilaire in Brazil, details the 

 structure and position of the seed in Clusia in still more minute and 

 positive terms ; but Mr. Miers states that little dependence is to be 



