NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 97 
entire. Capsule ovate, acute, l-celled (by the obliteration of the dissepiment), 2-valved, 1-4-seeded. Coty- 
ledons distinct.—A tree, with a straight slender trunk, Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acuminated, upper side 
shining, under glaucous: midrib and the margins coloured, lateral nerves close, parallel, almost inconspicu- 
ous. Flowers terminal or axillary, large, white. Fruit about the size of a small apple.— W. & A. Prod. p. 104, 
This genus is purely Asiatic, and is limited, so far as yet known, to 5 or 6 species : figures of three 
of which I formerly published. They are all handsome trees with large pure white flowers. ‘The one here- 
figured affords a good idea of what they are, when in full flower. They are handsome growing trees with as- 
cending rather than spreading branches; the leaves of all quite entire, lancet-shaped,perfectly glabrous and, for 
the most, covered beneath with a thick coating of white bloom. In the parts of the flower they agree with, 
Garcinia, having 4 sepals and four petals, but differ in the ovary, whichis 2-celled with two erect ovules 
in each, in place of 4 or more celled with 1 ovule in each. 
Callophyliee forms a further descent in that organ, having a one-celled ovary with from one to 
four ovules, but agrees in the quaternary flowers, 4 and its multiples being constant. Notwithstanding these 
differences in the ovary, both these tribes seem correctly referred, as sub-orders, to Gutlifere, but taking habit 
into consideration they cannot be viewed as actual associates, and could not be included in one diagram, in 
the manner adopted by Dr. Lindlay in his School Botany,* along with true Garcinee. 
Mesva spsctosa (Cutsy) leaves long linear-lan- plant under the name of M. ferrea and up to the pre- 
ce sclate subacute : flowers shortly peduncled: petals sent time thought this distinct. A closer exa mination 
exunguiculate Se gp kei mature fruit, four- however leads meto doubt whether the continental 
seeded. Choisy, i one is different from the insular tree, the more so as 
This very hanigoese ist fo und on the at the original Jf. ferrea is an Eastern tree, while the 
slopes of the Neilgherries, 3 miles below Coon M. speciosa is from Western India. ‘The ae 
oe at an elevation of about 5,000 feet above “ae between the se as given a Choisy are that in MM, 
errea, the petals have a claw or ‘ unguis’ which is 
"Te not easy to distinguish the species of this wanting in thi a, and that the fruit in that is one-seed- 
een I formerly published afigure of the Ceylon ed, while in this four is the usual number. 
XVIII.—HIPPOCARTIACE, 
This, like the former, is for the most part a tropical family, or inhabiting the 
warmer countries immediately bordering the tropics. The species seem pretty equally 
divided between South America and Asia predominating, however, in the former. The addi- 
tions which have been made to the order since its publication in De Candolles’ Prodromus, 
have been principally Asiatic, which have materially tended to equalize the numbers for the 
two countries. Atthat time, 1824, the American ones excceded the Asiatic and African 
species by more than a half, now they are nearly equal. It is not to be supposed that a 
family so tropical in its habits should abound on the Neilgherries, and such experience 
proves, as the one figured is almost the oaly species I have found at a considerable elevation. 
This shrub I found at Sisparah at an elevation of, I think, about 5,000 feet, at a lower elevation 
two or three others are found, but these come within the tropical range. 
—— 
* This I consider one of the most ingenious and, so faras it goes, -_— aE — now extant on Botany, Andn ' ne 
— of oe thoroughly —— with the true working of the d fail to study that Book iis 
t the geometr f Botany, its Precis being, to the Botanis, of much the same value as ose ot 
Bach are to ie Mathematician, “The introdnetion of — to represent the essential seactinn of erders 1 look u 
et science, and eats hing, on a firm and satisfactory adie 
to the P 
the ipslaaiiaee of natural clasttiication; and, therefore, view the publication of this little book as the een Sc Fane ; erai 
this science. It has only one fault, which doubtless will be remedied in the nex 
diagrams being confined to the elucidation of pee — — - — a selectio 
has shown the way, itis to be hoped the next edi tem of tsi any will be imaged illustrated through- 
out, and that, ere long, we shall have a genera plantarum in which the limits of both orders and genera are so defined, 
doing so being so simple that it might be executed at little cost. 
PEs. ee this eetwnrit was — eine? the deers I BN agree Dr. Lindley haselt iat an -Itinatreted ‘dition of Dis 
Natural Syst of ool Botany is already published. 
