Till PBOCEEDINGS OF THE 



Bead, secondly, a Letter from Dr. Thomson to Dr. Hooker, on 

 some plants collected at Aden. 



Read, thirdly, the following " Note on Omphalocarpon procerum, 

 Pal. Beauv. ;" by George Bentham Esq., V.P.L.S. (accompanied 

 by specimens). 



The specimens now exhibited were gathered by Mr. Mann on 

 the Cameroon Eiver, in West Tropical Africa, and from the simi- 

 larity of the general aspect of the tree, its foliage, and the remark- 

 able fruits growing sessile on the main trunk, I have no hesitation 

 in referring them to the Omplialocarpon procerum of Pal. de 

 Beauvois, who found the tree in nearly the same district of West 

 Tropical Africa, and figured it in his " Plore d'Oware et de Benin," 

 vol. i. p. 7, pi. 5 & 6. Our flowers are indeed very diiferent in the de- 

 tails of their structure from those described by De Beauvois ; but 

 any one who has much studied the above-quoted work, will have 

 detected many instances where the detailed analyses of the flowers 

 are very incorrect, owing sometimes to the fragmentary state of 

 the specimens, at others to their having been mismatched, or the 

 parts totally wanting supplied from recollection, or even from the 

 imagination of the artist. Our flowers, like his, are females only ; 

 but instead of being distinctly gamopetalous, an inch long, with 

 numerous imbricate sepals, I find 5 orbicular, concave sepals, about 

 3 lines diameter, the 2 outer ones very thick ; 5 petals not larger 

 than the sepals, similar in shape, but thinner and slightly connate 

 at the base, where they are also united with the base of the bar- 

 ren filaments ; these are numerous and short, the inner ones united 

 in 5 laciniate scales. The ovary is conical with a thin sessile disk- 

 like terminal stigma very minutely toothed ; the cells are nume- 

 rous, annular, with a single laterally attached ovule in each. 

 The fruits, although far from having attained their full size, are as 

 figured by De Beauvois, except that they present in their centre a 

 curious spherical cavity from which the cells radiate. Our seeds 

 are too young to show their internal structure, and still flat ; but 

 they have the remarkable long hilum figured. 



Prom these particulars it appears evident that the tree belongs 

 to Tei'iistroemiacece, and not to Sapotacece. In the absence of the 

 male flower, its precise position in the order cannot be fixed. 

 The flowers are those of TernstroemiacecB proper ; the fruit comes 

 perhaps nearest to that of Pyrenoria ; and the seed, if correctly 



