NATURAL ORDERS. 127 



distinct, not only in the strncture of its ovarium 

 and seeds, but in its leaves being altogether destitute of 

 glands, which are not only numerous in Samydea^, but con- 

 sisting of a mixture of rouiul and linear ])elhici(l dots, 

 distinguish them from all the other famihes^ with which 

 there is any probability of their being confounded. 



Sir James Smith" has lately suggested the near affinity 

 of Aquilaria to Euphorbiaceac. But I confess it appears 

 to me at least as distinct from that order as from Sauiydeac ; 

 and I am inclined to think, paradoxical as it may seem, 

 that it would be less difficult to prove its affinity to Thy- 

 meleoo than to either of theui ; a ])oint, however, which, 

 requiring considerable details, I do not mean to attempt in 

 the present essay. 



Of EUPIiORBIACE^ there are twenty S|)ecies iu the 

 collection, or one twenty-eighth part of its Phsenogamous 

 plants. This is somewhat greater than the intratropical 

 proportion of the order as stated by Barou Ihunboldt, but 

 rather smaller than that of India or of the northern parts 

 of New Holland. 



The most remarkable plants of Euphorbiaceac in the 

 Congo herbarium are : a new species of the American 

 genus AJchornca ; a plant differing from jEgopricon, a 

 genus also belonging to America, chiefly in its capsular 

 fruit ; two new species of Bridelia, wdiich has hitherto been 

 observed only in India; and an unpublished genus that T 

 have formerly alluded to,^ as in some degree explaininn^ 

 the real structure of Euphorbia, and from the considera- 

 tion of which also it seems probable that what was form- 

 erly described as the hermaphrodite flower of that genus, 

 is in reality a compound fasciculus of flowers.* From the 

 same species of this un|)ublished genus a substance resem- 

 bling caoutchouc is said to be obtained at Sierra Leone. 



' The only otlier genus in wliicli I liave observed an analogous varicly of 

 form in the glands of the leaves, is Myroxyhm (to which both Myrospermum 

 and Toluifera belong), in all of whose species tliis character is very remarkable, 

 tiie pellucid lines being much longer than in Samydeas. 



'' Li)i,i. Snc Trcomict. 11,;?. 2:50. ^ Flimlers's Voy.^.p. 557. {Ante, p. 20.) 



'' Linn. Sijc. Transact. 12, p. 99. 



