334 KOTE ON vavjEA and khytidandra. 



between them through the Ebenacece, — should at the same time ignore any affinity 

 between the MeUaceic and his Sfj/racecc, especially while the latter family is made 

 to include Pamphilia and Foveolaria. 



Rhytidandra * is a genus established on a specimen of a shrub or arborescent plant, 

 with unexpanded flowers only, in the collection of the United States Exploring Expe- 

 dition, from one of the Feejee Islands. It was referred to the Olacacece ; but with some 

 misgiving, on account of the complete and immediate adhesion of the calyx to the 

 surface of the ovary ; which, moreover, is strictly one-celled, and with a single ovule 

 suspended from the very apex of the cell, without the intervention of any placental 

 column or any trace of sterile cells. I had remarked, that, " if rightly referred to this 

 order, it must be viewed as a genus whose affinity tends towards Styracacecc rather than 

 Santalacece." t This floral structure should have led me at once to consider the relations 

 of the plant to Alangium and Marlea ; but, possessing no materials of, and no previous 

 acquaintance with, the Alangiece, I overlooked what I now perceive to be the nearest 

 affinity of Jxhytidandra. 



The leaves of this plant, with their transverse veinlets and oblique base ; the axillary 

 cymose inflorescence ; the adnate and scarcely toothed calyx ; the long and narrow 

 petals, borne, like the stamens, on the margin of an epigynous disc ; the linear and 

 introrsely adnate anthers ; the bearded filaments, such as they are (for they are ex- 

 tremely short) ; the solitary and suspended anatropous ovule ; and the elongated style, 

 are all points of perfect agreement with the Alangiccc. 



6. " A solitary one-celled putameu having a single erect seed " would commonly exclude Pteroslyrax and 

 Halesia, and does not well apply to Styrax ; the albumen is equally " copious and fleshy" in Symplocos ; 

 and the embryo of Halesia appears to be quite intermediate between that of the Symplocinea and that of 

 Styrax, some species of which exhibit little or no stellate pubescence. The petals in both species of Halesia, 

 although in some blossoms perhaps merely " agglutinated at the base by the membranaceous ring of the 

 stamens," in others are truly " confluent into a gamophyllous tube " far above the attachment of the an- 

 droBcium, the ring of which, moreover, is sometimes but imperfectly adnate to the base of a gamopetalous 

 corolla. 



The HumiriacecB are well marked by one or two decisive technical characters ; but nothing appears to 

 forbid their annexation to the Styracacea while that family includes the SymplocinecB. 



* Botany of the United States Exploring Expedition under Captain Wilkes : Phanerogamia, p. 302, t. 28. 



•f It should be stated that Mr. Micrs, who has, perhaps, a more profound and extensive acquaintance with 

 the Olacacece and their immediate allies than any other botanist, and who has most ably illustrated them, 

 on reading the published characters of Rhytidandra, immediately expressed to me, in a letter, his opinion 

 that the genus belonged neither to his Icacinea: nor Olacinece. He suggested, instead, an affinity with the 

 Lora7)thacece. 



