114 Mr. J. Miers on the Bignoniacese. 



diagnoses of DeCandolle, he has been led into the further 

 misconception of ascribing to Tanaecium a unilocular ovary and 

 fruit — a structure which I find quite foreign to it. I agree, 

 however, with Dr. Seemann in his conclusion that the Tanaecium 

 parasiticum, Sw., to which I have just alluded, is congeneric 

 with the Schlegelia lilacina, Miq., a genus unquestionably be- 

 longing to Crescentiacece. Willdenow associated with Tanaecium 

 Jaroba, Sw., not only T. parasiticum, Sw., but Crescentia pinnata, 

 Jacq. As in these two plants the seeds are imbedded in pulp, 

 it was then first incorrectly assumed that the fruit of T. Jaroba 

 was also pulpy within ; but Swartz, the only botanist who has 

 described it from actual observation, nowhere hints at the ex- 

 istence of any pulp between the seeds, while he notices its 

 presence distinctly in Tanaecium (Schlegelia) parasiticum. The 

 fruit described by me in vol. vii. p. 167 sufficiently agrees with 

 the well-detailed account of Swartz of his Tanaecium Jaroba ; 

 and there can be little doubt of its belonging to that species. 

 It is therefore clear that the generic character given by Dr. See- 

 mann (loc. cit. p. 82), excepting some misconception about the 

 structure of the ovary, applies to Schlegelia, certainly not to 

 Tanaecium. Endlicher, in his ' Genera Plantarum,' bases his 

 diagnosis of Tanaecium (4172) entirely upon the T. parasiticum, 

 Sw. (Schlegelia), and, in a note, points out its generic discord- 

 ance with the T. Jaroba, Sw. (T. albijiorum, DC), which he 

 suggests may probably be a species of Crescentia. 



I need not repeat here the description already given (vol. vii. 

 p. 167) of the fruit of Tanaecium albijiorum, DC. Since that 

 was written, I have seen the fruit of another species ( T. pra- 

 longum), in which there is a somewhat different evolution of the 

 placentre, which explains the apparent anomaly of the develop- 

 ment, so dissimilar in the former case from the usual structure 

 of the order. These two examples are most instructive,^ and 

 serve to confirm in the strongest manner the hypothesis of the 

 normally 4-carpellary structure of the ovary. The dissepiment 

 is here composed, as usual, of the two chartaceous lamellar plates, 

 united together for the greater part of their breadth ; but these 

 plates divaricate when they approach the margins of the valves, 

 and are thus respectively reflected away from each other upon 

 them, as in Pithecoctenium, only for a much greater breadth, 

 becoming agglutinated to the inner face of the valves ; and the 

 seeds are attached by their very large hilum, partly to the re- 

 flected margins and partly to the main portion of the dissepi- 

 ment. In T. albijiorum, the attachment of the seeds is wholly 

 upon the reflected margins of the dissepiment; and when the 

 fruit opens, these four placentiferous portions remain confluent 

 with the two valves, while the main body of the dissepiment 



