16 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacese. 



it grows into a very slender elongated tube within the cell of 

 the ovary, gradually extending itself till it completes a circle, 

 and that at that point, meeting with obstruction, it would be 

 turned aside and carried forward in an inward spiral coil for 

 nearly two other gyrations, terminating in the centre : in this 

 case the entire coiling tube ought to be free; but we see the 

 reverse; for its adjacent sides are found agglutinated together 

 and also with the interposing spiral condyle, which has simul- 

 taneously accompanied it in its growth. By what means this is 

 accomplished appears an enigma very difficult of explanation. 



The onl}^ species of Spirospermum is a tree of low stature, or 

 a shrub with pendent branches charged with large, lanceolate- 

 oblong, coriaceous, polished, glabrous leaves, with many parallel 

 oblique nerves, which anastomose near the margin ; the petiole 

 is short and stout; the inflorescence is a terminal panicle, twice 

 the length of the leaves, pendent, and, with the fruit, becomes 

 black in drying; it is copiously branched, its ultimate branches 

 bearing, in the ? plant, two long fructiferous pedicels, swollen 

 at their summit into a receptacle, which carries nine crowded 

 stipitate drupes, all being glabrous, bractless, and black. The 

 drupes are exsiccous, orbicular, extremely compressed, acutely 

 carinated on the margin, on which, close to the base, is seen the 

 remnant of the persistent style, and on each flattened face, near 

 the carinated margin, is a prominent ring : the putamen is thin 

 and coriaceous, quite flat and discoid in the centre of each face, 

 where it is marked by a spiral farrow corresponding with the 

 line of condyle already described. 



In the (^ plant the inflorescence is in axillary panicles, which 

 are as long as the leaves, having a slender rachis provided at each 

 of its alternate axils with two slender branches of unequal length, 

 all dichotomously divided, the ultimate branchlets bearing two 

 equal 1-flowered pedicels, all quite glabrous. The flowers are 

 small, consisting of: — six obovate sepals, in two series, the three 

 inner being twice the length of the three outer ones; six equal 

 oblong petals, one-third the length of the inner sepals, having 

 their lateral margins inflected ; six stamens, in two scries, the 

 length of the petals, the three outer ones free, with slender fila- 

 ments, the three inner filaments being united for half their 

 length into a monadelphous column ; each stamen provided with 

 two free, distinct, erect anther-lobes. 



Spirospermum, Thouars. — Flores dioici, ubicjue glabri. Masc. 

 Sepala 6, biseriata, obovata, fusco-nigrescentia, quorum 3 

 interiora duplo majora. Petala 6, biseriata, sequalia, oblonga, 

 sepalis interioribus 3-pIo brevioribus, lateribus inflexis. Sta- 

 mina C, biseriata, petalis aquilonga ; filamenta filiformia, 



