Mr. J. Miers on the "NViuteracefe. Ill 



896 ; — arbuscula glaberrima ; ramulis novellis, glaucis ; foliis 

 concoloribus, oblongo-lanceolatis, utrinque attenuatis, inte- 

 gerrimis, unclique glaberiimis, valde reticulatim venosis, imo 

 m petiolum canaliculatum auguste decurreutibus ; pedicellis 

 2-3, unifloris, e pulvino axillari ortis, floribus monoico-poly- 

 gamis ; calyce 2-partito ; petalis 8-10, lineari-oblongis, ob- 

 tusis ; stamina circiter 30, aut nulla ; ovaria 1 ad 4. — Borneo ; 

 V. s. in hb. Hook. 



I have already stated some of my reasons for referring this 

 plant to Tasmannia rather than to Drimys. The latter genus 

 has been found only in the western world and in the islands of 

 Juan Fernandez and New Zealand, the plants of which latter 

 country present so many curious analogies with the extratropical 

 flora of the South American continent. Dr. Hooker has given 

 an admirable figure of this species ; and in describing it he ac- 

 knowledges its close alliance to the genus Tasmannia, on account 

 of its unisexual flowers and its few carpels, which are two of the 

 principal characters that serve to distinguish this genus from 

 Drimys. I have already alluded to the shape of its stigma, 

 which has quite the peculiar form of that of Tasmannia, and to 

 its stamens, which also correspond to that genus ; and to these 

 features may be added, that its leaves are deficient of the pecu- 

 liar glaucous under surface that universally marks those of Dri- 

 mys ; they are, on the contrary, concolorous, extremely reticu- 

 lated, and the petiole is slightly winged, as in T. insipida. I 

 have observed, in the same specimen, female flowers with no 

 stamens, and only a single ovary; and hermaphrodite flowers 

 with thirty stamens in four rows, and one ovary : others have 

 four ovaries ; and in all three cases I found eight petals in two 

 series. 



3. Illicium. 



This genus is too well known, and its relation to Drimys and 

 Tasmannia is too well established, to require much notice ; but 

 I will offer a few observations upon its seed, which in its struc- 

 ture is quite analogous to that of the genera just mentioned. 

 The best details of the generic features of Illicium are given in 

 the admirable work of Dr. Asa Gray, ' The Genera of the United 

 States,' where, in plate 21, there is an excellent analysis of Jlli- 

 cium Floridanum, from which we may conclude that there is no 

 essential difference in the structure of the American and Asiatic 

 species ; all that may be noticed is, that in the latter 1 have ob- 

 served that the stamens are not introrse, as there seen, but that 

 the anther-cells are imbedded laterally on each side of the fleshy 

 filament, and that the three rows of stamens are fixed upon the 

 outside of a very short gynophorus, in the summit of which the 



