New Genus of Plants of the order Santalacee. 387 
ever, being unable to find a single plant of the kind over the 
whole ground, where it was quite abundant six years ago. 
It was with great pleasure that I met with a specimen of this 
plant, for the third time, in February last, in a small but inter- 
esting collection made around Macon, Georgia, by Professor J. 
Darby, the author. of a good elementary treatise. on “Southern 
Botany,” and the former principal of a seminary of high character 
at that place, but who has recently accepted the mathematical 
chair in Williams College, Massachusetts. The unticketed spe- 
cimen is finely in blossom, but, much to my disappointment, the 
flowers all proved to be staminate. 
Still, the materials in my possession, imperfect as they are, 
suffice to show that the shrub in question belongs to the small 
and highly interesting order of Santalacee, and that it is nearly 
allied to the genus Comandra of Nuttall. With my present in- 
formation, I know of no other genus with which it may be im- 
mediately compared. 
In inflorescence it agrees with Comandra, except that the pe- 
duncles are axillary, and the short pedicels strictly umbellate. 
The calyx, disk and stamens are quite similar, and above all, the 
anthers are connected with the lobes of the perigonium by the 
same singular tufts of cobwebby hairs. The, observed points of 
difference are, first, that this new plant is apparently dicecious. 
The staminate flowers do not exhibit the slightest trace of a 
gynecium. The turbinate calyx-tube is accordingly hollow to 
the very base, and is lined with the thin disk throughout. In 
“the second place, the present plant is a shrub, though attaining 
to.the height of only one or two feet, and presenting some- 
what the aspect of a Viburnum; while the two species of Co- 
mandra are low herbs, with at most a suffrutescent base ; and 
thirdly, what is of more importance, the leaves, which are alter- 
nate in Comandra, are uniformly opposite in our plant. ‘They 
may perhaps be compared with those of some Prinos, or of 
Nemopanthes, Raf. (Ilex Canadensis, Michz.) except that they 
are mostly acute at both ends. 
On applying to Professor Darby for further information, I learn 
that this shrub has been to him an object of special interest. for 
the last ten years, although he has never found it except upon 
one spot, only a few rods square, where it is abundant, forming 
bushy shrubs, two or three feet in height. The pistillate flowers 
