620 PLANTS JAVANICE RARIORKS. 



the direction of the embryo dependent on that of the seed, 

 even in the carpella of all the species then published. 



In 1831, in the ' Flore de Senegainbie/ the joint work 

 of MM. Guillemin, Perrottet and Richard, a new point is 

 introduced into the character of Sterculia} namely an 

 incomplete arillus, which, however, if it really exists in any 

 case, is probably to be found in one species only, namely, 

 Sterculia cordifolia : in all the other species which I have 

 examined, there is either only a minute carimcula umbi- 

 lical is or strqphiola, as in St.fcetida, or more generally no 

 trace whatever of this appendage. 



In 1832, in the ' Meletemata Botanica ' of Schott and 

 Endlicher, the Natural Order Sterculiacece is divided into 

 three principal tribes — Pombacea, llelicterece, and Ster- 

 culiece. This last tribe, as in DeCandolle's ' Prodromus/ 

 is limited to the genera Sterculia and Heritiera. But 

 Sterculia is divided into twelve genera, chiefly from modi- 

 fications of the flower, or from the texture and period of 

 dehiscence of the folliculi, and in one case from the seed 

 being winged ; no modification of internal structure of seed 

 being introduced into any of the characters. 



In the same year, the third volume of Dr. Roxburgh's 

 * Flora Indica ' was printed at Calcutta. In this valuable 

 work such a generic character of Sterculia" is given as to 

 comprehend all the Indian species, and indeed so con- 

 sul structed as to include all that are now known, except 

 Courtenia, a new genus of the present essay; and even 

 that would be excluded only from its generally having 

 double the usual number of ovaria. Several new species 

 are well described in the work, and the direction of embryo 

 noticed in most of them ; the only species in which the 

 radicle is described as pointing to the umbilicus being his 

 Sterculia alata. 



In 1840 Professor Endlicher, in the 13th part of his 

 ' Genera Plantarum,' modifies the arrangement of the Lin- 

 nean genus Sterculia given in the ' Meletemata,' all the 

 genera there established, except his Pterygoid (the St. dldtci 



1 Vol. i. p. 79. 2 p. 141. 



