176 DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OF QUERCUS AND CASTANEA. 
the description being, from the statement at the head of the article, - 
due to Mr. Bentham, and was referred to Blume’s section Castaneopsis.* 
The diagnosis is very accurate, but no notice is taken of the internal 
structure of the seed. It was next taken up in Dr. Seemann’s ‘ Botany 
of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald’ (1857), Mr. Bentham’s character 
being copied verbatim, and no observation being made on the seed; 
but an admirable representation of the plant was given by Mr. Fitch 
at pl. 92, with beautiful analyses from the pencil of Dr. Hooker, in 
which the convolution of the cotyledons is most faithfully represented. 
Tn the * Flora Hongkongensis ’ of Mr. Bentham (1861), to the perhaps 
unparalleled accuracy and completeness of which as a descriptive work 
on the vegetation of so distant an island, I, as a tolerably close student 
for about eighteen years of the flora of southern China, may prefer a 
claim competently to bear grateful testimony, this species was also in- 
eluded, without any expression of doubt, in the genus Quercus, a fresh 
diagnosis being given, in which the cotyledons are noted as “intri- 
cately crumpled,” and Seemann’s plate being also referred to. 
us much for the history of this interesting plant. We will now 
examine the question of its generic position. I have above referred 
to the opinions of some botanists, who have had good opportunities 
of investigating Asiatic Cupulifere, on the differential characters of 
Quercus and Castanea. A comparison of these with the descriptions 
given of many species, and the actual examination of a limited number, 
have satisfied me that these characters, so far as relates to species whose 
position is undoubted, and excluding for the present the plant under 
consideration, may be reduced to the following :— 
Quercus. Fructüsinvoluerumnune Castanea.  Fructüs involucrum 
eupuliforme, nucem levem basi 
tantum cingens, indehiscens ; 
nunc capsuliforme, eam omnino 
vel fere obvolvens, maturitate 
irregulariter fissum; extus varie 
appendieulatum. Cotyledones 
facie plane, extus convexe, in- 
tegree vel plus minus suleatze 
seu lobulatee. 
capsuliforme, nucem omnino 
obvolvens, maturitate in valvas 
regulariter hiscens, extus echi- 
natum. Cotyledones convoluto- | 
plicate. 
* This is the — of Endlicher's Chlamydobalanus, a name prior by m more 
than two years, must be remarked, however, that probably from insufficient 
