V 



STRUCTURE.] OF THE NUTMEG. 53 



Euonymus Europseus, Celastrus scan dens and buxifolius 

 have furnished me, for the organ in question, the same 

 characters as the Euonymus; and I cannot help thinking 

 that they would be also found in Maytenus, Polycardia, 

 Pterocelastrus, and other genera of Spindletrees, in which an 

 aril has been described. 



The fleshy, laciniate envelope of the nutmeg, so often cited 

 as an example of an aril, is inserted by a pretty large surface 

 to that extremity of the seed to which the radicle points, and 

 even adheres to the base of the raphe. The funicle, which is 

 very short, is attached to the same place, so that the hilum 

 is confounded with the areola of insertion of the accessory 

 envelope, and the latter seems to be an expansion of the 

 umbilical cord i.e. an aril. But we know from the Euonymus 

 that the false aril can be intimately adherent to the funicle, 

 and even to the base of the raphe, without the more for that 

 losing its principal character, and that the micropyle, clearly 

 visible on the arillary integument, distinguishes the latter 

 from the productions of the funicle. I have not been able 

 to examine a nut in a sufficiently good state to enable me to 

 see the micropyle on the surface of its so called aril ; but a 

 very good reason induces me to consider the latter as an 

 expansion of the exostome. In seeds, the testa of which is 

 composed of two layers, the external being parenchymatous, 

 and the internal crustaceous, the position of the micropyle 

 can be distinguished on each ; on the external layer by a 

 narrow opening or a shallow depression, and on the internal 

 one on the contrary by a small tumour, more or less pointed, 

 and very finely perforated, directly corresponding with the 

 external opening, so that the place of the latter can be judged 

 of from that of the tumour, and vice versa. Now, in the 

 Nutmeg, the testa of which is composed of two very distinct 

 layers, in the areola of insertion of the pretended aril, we find 

 the little tumour which on the crustaceous layer of the testa 

 represents the micropyle, and towards which, as I have said, 

 the radicle is pointed ; this laciniate envelope then, though 

 called an aril, is nothing but an expansion of the exostome. 



The mass inclosed within the testa or outer integument is 



