﻿376 NEVIUSIA, A NETT GENUS OF ROSACEA. 



with, the habit, stipules, foliage, and flowers of Spiraea, but decandrous and monogy- 

 nous, and with style, stigma, and seeds of Neillia, but only dispermous, or by abortion 

 monospennous ; whUe the achenioid pericarp resembles that of our genus Neviusia. 



For the more immediate relatives of our new genus, we must still look to Japan, 

 which abounds in counterparts of Eastern North American plants ; and we find them in 

 Kerria and Rhodotypos, both illustrated by Zuccarini. Both of these genera accord 

 well with our plant in their whole habit, foliage, &c. ; and no less so in the floral 

 structure, except that Neviusia is apetalous. Rhodofi/pos, moreover, has foliaceous 

 and serrated sepals (but only four in number, much like those of our plant, which 

 simulate those of Duchesnea or Fragaria Indica), but difiering remarkably from all its 

 allies in its opposite leaves.* Nor does our plant exhibit any trace of the extraordi- 

 nary urceolus of Rhodotj/pos, within the staminiferous disk, and enclosing the ovaries, 

 like the disk of Paonia Moutan. In this, as in other respects, it most resembles 

 Kerria, and the staminiferous disk is similar, but broader. The stamens and the pistils 

 are essentially alike in all three genera,"f except that the stigma in Rhodotypos is ter- 

 minal and capitellate ; and the ovarj' biovulate, as in Rnbiis and Daliharda. The fruit 

 of both Japanese genera is like that of our genus, and (which is of most consequence) 

 the embryo, as illustrated by Zuccaiini, is quite the same, having the radicle bent doAvn 

 towards the ventral edge of the cotyledons, as in no other Rosacea: known to me. 



I have not myself seen ripe fruit or seeds of Kerria or Rhodotypos. Zuccarini de- 

 scribes the latter as exalbuminous. If it be so, these genera, with Neviusia, must 

 needs form a part of the subtribe Dalihardece, If they all have a thin albumen, they 

 would compose a separate division or subtribe, near to Dalihardea:. 



* So described without exception by Zuccarini, and so they are in my specimen. But upon the plate 

 (tab. 99) a sterile branch with alternate leaves is represented, which receives no explanation in the letter-press. 



t Wlien the pistils accord in number with the sepals, they are opposite them in Kerria, and apparently in 

 Rhodotypos also. In Nevitisia they are fewer than the sepals. 



Plate XXX. Fig. 1. A branchlet in flower. 2. A branch in fruit. 3. Parts of a flower in vertical 

 section. 4. The pistils. 5. View of the disk after flowering. 6. Vertical section of a nearly mature fruit. 

 7. Transverse section of a mature fruit and seed. 8. Vertical section of a fruit, exhibiting the embryo. 

 9. The embryo extrated. — The analyses all more or less magnified. 



