Mr. J. Micrs on the genus Tessarandra. 199 



This is a small tree with dense opake foliage, which I found 

 growing upon the Morro Flamengo, a hill at the point of Bota- 

 fogo Bay, near Rio de Janeiro. Its opposite leaves are erect, 

 almost adpressed to the stems, sessile, ovate, somewhat cordate 

 at base, rounded, with a small emarginature at the summit ; they 

 are 2 to 2i inches long, and li to 2 inches broad, with inter- 

 nodes distant ^ to | of an inch ; they are thick and coriaceous, 

 the Tipper surface dark green, ratber polished, with raised vena- 

 tions, and a minute pubescence scarcely visible by the naked eye ; 

 beneath they are of a pale glaucous green, tbe midrib being thick 

 and prominent, and tumid at base ; a tuft of hairs adjoins the 

 midrib at the base of each nei^e. The inflorescence is generally 

 terminal in the brancblets, in the axils of the young leaves, 

 iu slender panicles about 2 inches long, with oppositely divari- 

 cating bracteated brancblets ; the pedicels being very short and 

 square, with a small oblong, concave, reflected bract at base, with 

 ciliated margins. The persistent calyx, scarcely a line in length, 

 has a short cup-shaped tube, rising from a small fleshy torus, 

 with its border divided into four unequal, rather obtuse, erect 

 segments, the two lateral ones being somewhat broader ; these 

 have on the inner face a very prominent midrib, which, as well 

 as the margin, is beset with white ciliate hairs. The corolla con- 

 sists of four alternate equal, linear, white, revolute petals, with a 

 rounded apex and an inflected margin, about half an inch long 

 and 1 line broad. The stamens are very small, barely a line iu 

 length ; the filaments being very short, broad, fleshy, expanding 

 at the base, and though free, form a sort of hypogynous tube 

 around the ovarium and within the base of the petals, with which 

 they alternate ; they terminate in a fleshy connective that exceeds 

 the anthers, forming an obtuse appendage at their summit ; the 

 anthers are coriaceous, oblong, with two distinct parallel cells fixed 

 at the back of the connective, the dehiscence being thus extrorse, 

 by a longitudinal fissure in each cell ; the pollen is minute, yel- 

 low, gramdar, and marked with rounded prominences at trian- 

 gular distances. The ovarium is oblong, 2-grooved, 2-celled, 

 the cells being lateral and opposite the broader segments of the 

 calyx, each containing two ovules, suspended collaterally on the 

 dissepiment a little below its summit. The style is very short 

 and thick, terminated by a stigma, with two fleshy, obtuse, diva- 

 ricate lobes. The berry is dark purple, oval, about f of an inch 

 long and | of an inch in diameter, with little pulp, inclosing a 

 single coriaceous putamen, marked outside by several reticulated 

 venous threads, branching from the base ; it contains two seeds, 

 which are often unequal in size, without any intervening disse- 

 piment, or sometimes only one by abortion ; the testa is thin, 

 brow^^, with a slender adhering integument, and marked with a 



