164 THE JOUENAL OF INDIAN BOTANY. 



Candolle was misled by imperfect material, and this theory was 

 adopted and elaborated in the same year by J. J. Bennett, when dealing 

 with a tree found by Horsfield in the " Banyumar Province " of 

 Java, on which Bennett's genus Saccopetalum was founded (Plaht, 

 Jav. Ear. p. 165 t. f xxxv : 1840). 



Bennett remarked that since the publication of the family in De 

 Candolle's Prodromus two new genera of Anonacere had been con- 

 stituted, viz., Milium and Hyalostema. With " Hyalostemma we 

 need not concern ourselves further than to say that it was coined 

 by Wallich without any diagnosis, for a plant which had been 

 duly described by Eoxburgh (Fl. Ind. ii. 660) as Uvaria dioeca. 

 Bennett's note adds nothing to the history of " Hyalostemma " (which 

 has subsequently been dropped by common consent), and his dis- 

 cussion of De Candolle's plant does not advance the history of 

 Miliusa, because he postulates the identity of Wight's species with 

 " Miliusa Leschenaultii ", which, as we have seen, can only be 

 accepted by making alternative assumptions, in support of which 

 no proof has been put forward. 



As it happens, a good deal of the reasoning expended on the 

 matter is invalidated by facts since discovered. Speaking of that 

 group of Anonaceae, of which Miliusa has been taken as the type, 

 Bennett writes : — 



" The stamina also are subject to some modifications, less exten- 

 sive however than the character and description of Miliusa given by 

 M. Alph. De Candolle would lead us to believe. Their number in that 

 genus, according to my observation, is about 27 instead of 12, forming 

 three alternating series, in each of which two are opposed to each of 

 the inner, and one to each of the outer petals ". Now, in Miliusa 

 nilagirica Beddome, Ic. PI. Ind. Or. t. lxxxviii (1876) there are but 

 eight stamens : that this is a Miliusa no one probably will dispute, 

 and in that case Bennett's estimate of the stamens as " about 27 " 

 obviously calls for revision. It seems even possible that this plant, 

 and not either of Wight's Miliusae, was the true M. Leschenaultii* 

 The glabrate middle surface and margin thickened towards the apex 

 of the petals, which are given as distinctive of M. nilagirica are 

 approached in some examples of ill. montana, Gardner, and these 

 differences are not sufficient, perhaps, to mark off Beddome's species 

 from that of De Candolle. Beddome's illustration Ixxxv serves to 

 contrast M. a finis, Wight MSS., — which is there figured as 

 " M. indica", — from M. Leschenaultii. The number of the stamens 

 in the last differs, as observed, from that M. nilagirica, but it may 

 be questioned whether the number is so fixed in this group as was 

 supposed by Bennett. As regards the structure of the valvate petals 

 he has very justly noted that the gamopetaly of the inner row is less 



