14 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispei'macese. 



nosis, crassis, accurabentibus, curvatis, radicula minima su- 

 pera ad styli vestigium spectante multoties longioribus. 

 Frutices Asiatici, forsan scandentes ; ramuli pubescentes, demum 

 glahri, cujmhso-nodosi ; axillis approximatis ; folia oblonga 

 vel oblongo-lanceolata, glaberrima, nervis impari-pinnatis ; pe- 

 tiolo subbrevi, imo apiceque subtumidulo : pedicelli (^ axillares, 

 2:)lurimi, fasciculati, gracillimi, l-flori, internodiis sapius ceqiii- 

 longi ; $ axillares, pauclores, crassiores, ^-flo7'i; drupse sub- 

 globosce. 



Descriptions of the following species will be found in the 

 third volume of my ' Contributions to Botany :' — 



\. Antitaxis fasciculata, nob. — In peninsula Malayana : v. s. 



in herb. Hook, et ineo ^ , Malacca (Griffiths). 

 2. caulijlora, nob. — In Java : v. s. in herb. Mus. Brit., 



Java, ? (Horsfield, 3 et 4). 

 3. lucida, nob. ; — Cocculus lucidus, Tei/sen et Bennings, 



Nat. Tijdsch. iv. 397. — In Java: v.s. in herb. Hook. ? in 



hort. Bogor. cult. (T. Anderson). 

 4. longifolia, nob.; — Cocculus longifolius, DC. MS. — In 



insula Timor : v. s. in herb. Mus. Paris. 



52. Spirospermum. 



This genus was founded, in 1806, upon a Madagascar plant, 

 by Du Pe.tit-Thouars, who gave a very meagre description of it. 

 DeCandollc, in 1818, arranged the genus in Menispermacea, iu 

 his ' Systema,^ comprising all the details affi)rded by Thouars 

 within the space of six lines, and that is all we know of the plant 

 since that time. In my ])refatory remarks on this order {haj. 

 op. 3 ser. xiii. 125), not having then seen the plant, I excluded 

 the genus from the family, on account of the spiral form of its 

 embryo, and npon the following grounds. In every instance 

 throughout the Menispermacece I had found the em.bryo always 

 more or less incurved, the degree of its curvature invariably 

 corresponding with the extent of excentric growth of the ovary 

 and fruit, the cotyledonary end of the embryo being seen inva- 

 riably in close proximity to the basal point of attachment of the 

 fruit, while the radicular extremity as constantly points to the 

 vestige of the deflected style, the latter being generally drawn 

 down near to the basal point of attachment : hence, in the most 

 extreme cases, the embryo never completes an entire circle ; and 

 from the constancy of this feature, it was naturally inferred that 

 a spiral embryo could not occur in Menispermacece. A sub- 

 sequent examination of the seed convinced me that I was quite 

 mistaken in this conclusion, and that Spirospermum offers a very 



