CALYCANTHACEAE. 67 
MERATIA. 
(Family Calycanthaceae). 
Aromatic shrubs: deciduous or 
partly evergreen. Twigs rather 
slender, somewhat 4-sided or 4- 
angled or roundish: pith moder- 
ate, somewhat 4- or 6-sided, white, 
continuous. Buds solitary or 2 
superposed, sessile, subglobose, 
with about 2 pairs of evident 
scales, the end-bud lacking or 
loosely scaly. Leaf-scars oppo- 
site, half-round or broadly cres- 
cent-shaped, somewhat raised: 
bundle-trace 1, crescent-shaped, 
sometimes with a minute addi- 
tional trace at each end: stipule- 
scars lacking. Frequently united 
with the genus Calycanthus or 
called Chimonanthus. 
A structural anomaly in the 
Calycanthaceae is found in the 
occurrence of a series of four 
vascular bundles outside of the normal zone. Meratia differs 
from Calycanthus in its 4-sided inner zone, which is cylin- 
drical in Calycanthus—a genus which has been compared in 
its cortical structure with the very distantly placed family 
Myrtaceae. Winter-characters of Meratia praecox are consid- 
ered by Schneider, f. 222; and Shirasawa, 278, pl. 12. 
Twigs and buds gray-buiff. (1). M. praecox. 
Twigs and buds brown. (2). M. retusa. 
Winter-character references to Asimina triloba:—Bren- 
tel ai, .av, pl.-45CHitcheock (1), “49 "1," 8). C4) ) We Ae 
1-3; Schneider, f. 92, 100. Wiesner shows that some Annona- 
ceae afford illustrations of epitrophy. 
