OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 261 



JLnoplocaryum, Ledeb., of a single (Siberian) species, with rather 

 the habit of Iriyonofis, differs from Krynitzkia in having its smooth 

 and erect nutlets attached above the base for some length by a very 

 narrow cariniform caruncle (if it may be so called) to a conical-sub- 

 ulate gynobase, and the sepals in fruit are spreading. 



Plagiohothrys, Fischer & Meyer, is certainly a good genus, of con- 

 siderable extent and diversity, although the original character is appli- 

 cable to only one species. Its essential characters are found in the 

 insertion of the (ovate or trigonous) nutlets by a small portion of the 

 ventral face, mostly by near the middle (sometimes nearer to the base, 

 rarely nearer the apex), by means of a sort of caruncle, which remains 

 on the nutlet. The fall of the ripe nutlets, which is usually tardy, 

 leaves as many excavations or sunken areolie on the globular, or in 

 one species more elevated and in most of them more depressed, gyno- 

 base. The caruncle in the typical species is annular, bordering a 

 deep and round umbilical cavity of the nutlet itself, — a character to 

 which the generic name refers. Up to this year, however, I could find 

 no such excavation (and evidently Bentham was in the same case) ; 

 60 I had ventured to assert that the character of Fischer and Meyer 

 and of De Candolle might be incorrect. But I have now received 

 specimens from three localities in California (one from the extreme 

 northern border, and one from the southern part of the State), which 

 well exhibit this character. Once made known, I have been able to 

 verify it upon quite immature fruits of a Chilian plant from Bertero's 

 collection. All doubtless belong to the original P. rufescens. I find 

 in another Chilian species an annular caruncle, unaccompanied by any 

 manifest excavation. The species of Eritrichium § Plagiohothrys in 

 my Synoptical Flora, although with solid and more or less projecting 

 caruncle, are evidently congeneric, even to E. Kingii, which, when 

 mature fruit was unknown, was thought to effect a clear transition 

 to Krynitzlda. Echtdiocarya Californica and (yet more obviously) 

 E. ursina are also of the genus, differing only in the more salient or 

 stipitiform and indurated caruncle. This leaves Echidiocarya with a 

 single species, of very peculiar fruit. 



Mlcroula, Benth., of a single species from Tibet, in Strachey and 

 "Winterbottom's collection, essentially accords with a section of Plarjio- 

 hothrys, which has glomerate inflorescence and high insertion of nutlets 

 by means of a soft caruncle. But in Microula this is small and some- 

 what evanescent. The " subsessile glochidia," as they are called in 

 the Flora of British India, are so minute and sparse that they need 

 hardly be taken into account; but the genus may perhaps be kept up, 

 partly on geographical considerations. 



