130 Mr. J. Miers on Diclidanthera. 



This affinity does not appear to me evident, for the following 

 reasons : — in Moutabea, both calyx and corolla are really tubular, 

 and are confluent together for half their length ; the borders of 

 the calyx and corolla are both alike in size, and each divided 

 into five segments of unequal proportions; the stamens are 

 combined into a free tube terminating. in a ventricose fleshy 

 hood, cleft on one side, as in Polygalacea, — points of structure 

 at variance with those of Diclidanthera. Again, in Moutabea 

 the ovules are attached by their middle to the centre of the 

 axile column ; the seed has no albumen, and its embryo has 

 large oblong fleshy cotyledons, with a minute radicle drawn in 

 between them on the side of the shorter axis, — features, again, 

 incompatible with all that is found in Diclidanthera. 



In this genus, as stated on a former occasion*, although the 

 corolla assumes a tubular form, it is not really gamopetalous ; 

 the tube is composed of five narrow linear petals, loosely held in 

 juxtaposition by the simple application and agglutination of the 

 thin membranaceous stamens upon their inner surface. Of this 

 fact we may easily be convinced by moistening a flower, then 

 laving hold, one by one, of each segment of the border and 

 pulling it downwards, when each petal conies away separately, 

 without the laceration of either of its margins. Indeed, Mar- 

 tins, in describing the corolla as being monopetalous, qualifies 

 this by admitting it to be "quasi a petalis 5 secundum mar- 

 ginem leviter coalitis :" but in stating that the free lobes of its 

 border have a quincuncially imbricated aestivation, he has over- 

 looked the fact that the margins of their lower portions, in 

 forming the tube, overlap each other contorsively, — that is to 

 say, if we look from the centre of the flower, the dexter margin 

 of each petal is introrse, while the sinister side is extrorse, and 

 quite free in its entire length, appearing like a keel twisted 

 sideways, and ciliated to the base : they are simply held toge- 

 ther, as above mentioned, by the adhesion of the extremely thin 

 monadelphous tube of the stamens; and from the point at 

 which that tube terminates, the remaining upper portions are 

 quite free, constituting what have been termed the segments of 

 the border. The same fact is again shown by laying hold of 

 each anther separately and pulling it downwards, when a cor- 

 responding strip of the staminal tube is torn away to the 

 base, and the petals are thus left quite free : this tube is too 

 delicate and membranaceous to be detached in an entire state 

 without laceration ; but the structure, by the treatment I have 

 mentioned, is thus rendered manifest. All the parts of the 

 flower are isometrical in number, and symmetrically arranged : 

 five free linear sepals rise from the hemispherical cup of the 

 * Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 2. ix. 130; Contrib. to Bot. p. 130. 



