Linnaan Society, 323 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



LINN^AN SOCIETY. 

 April 16, 1850. — Robert Brown, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



Read the conclusion of Mr. Miers's memoir " On the family of 

 Triuriacece." 



Mr. Miers commences his paper by a reference to his establish- 

 ment of the genus Triuris in the 19 th volume of the Society's ' Trans- 

 actions,' and to the subsequent publication in the same volume by 

 the late Dr. Gardner of another nearly related genus under the name 

 of Peltophyllum ; but the name of the latter having been derived from 

 a leaf accompanying the specimen which Mr. Miers shows not to 

 have belonged to it, but to be in all probability that of a seedling 

 Cissampelos, he has found it necessary to substitute another generic 

 name, and has redescribed it in the following terms : — 



Hexuris, Miers. — Peltophyllum, Gardn. 

 Char. Gen. Flores dioici. Masc. ignoti. Fern. Periajithium profundi 

 6-partitiiiTi, hyalinum, persistens ; laciniis obovatis, praefloratione val- 

 vatis, singula infra apicem cornu subulato duplo longiore gyvato in- 

 cliiso, denmm patentibus, marginibus reflexis. Ovaria indefinite nu- 

 nierosa, minima, densissinie in gynaecium aggregata, sessilia, gibboso- 

 ovata, 1-locularia, 1-ovulata. Stylus subulatus, ad faciem internam 

 sublatevalis, apice pauliim incrassatus, oblique truncatus et stigmatosus. 

 Fructus ignotus. — Planta pusilla, Bras'diensis, diaphana, albida ; rhizo- 

 mnie fibrosa ; caule recto, simplici, v. suhramoso; foliis bracteiformibus, 

 paucis, basilaribus, ovatis, aciUis, adpressis, hydlinis ; floribus solitariis 

 V. subracemosis; pedunculis unifloris, basi bracteatis. 

 Hexuris Gardner!, Miers. 



Peltophyllum luteum, Gardn. in Linn. Trans, xix. p. 157. t. 15. 

 Uab. in arenosis humidis Prov. Goyaz Brasilia, Gardner, no. 3570. 

 The author next refers to two Ceylonese plants described by 

 Capt. Champion in the Calcutta Journal of Natural History for April 

 1846, with a note by Dr. Gardner, who was at the time much struck 

 by their resemblance to Triu7-is and his own Pelto-phyllum ; but both 

 gentlemen recognizing the manifest affinity of the Ceylonese plant 

 to Sciaphila of Blume, and misled by the position in Urticea assigned 

 to that genus by Dr. Blume, concurred in placing them in one or 

 other of the divisions of that great natural group. Of these two 

 genera Mr. Miers adopts the one, Hyalisma, as sufficiently distinct ; 

 but the second, Aphylleia, he refers without hesitation to Sciaphila, 

 together with two undescribed plants from Sir W. J. Hooker's her- 

 barium, found respectively by Cuming in the Philippine Islands, and 

 by Purdie in Venezuela. He also corrects with much detail the de- 

 scriptions of the embryo of the latter given by Mr. Champion and by 

 Dr. Gardner. The following are his characters of Sciaphila and of 

 Hyalisma, together with those of the known species : — 



Sciaphila, Blume. — Aphylleia, Champ. 

 Char. Gen. Flores monoici, v. polygami. Perianthium in utroque 

 sexu 6-pavtitum ; laciniis oblongis, acutis, reflexis, aestivatione valvatis, 



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