184 Mr. J. Miei's on a new species 0/ Lardizabala, 



cavity ; and although this pulp firmly embraces the seeds, they 

 observed no real adhesion except at the hilum, where there is a 

 broad organic attachment between it and the external tunic : 

 vessels originating from all parts of the surface of the pericarp 

 ramify through the pulp, but do not meet in the axis of the 

 fruit. A very similar development exists in Lardizabala, where 

 the internal space of the fruit is filled with an edible gelatinous 

 pulp : as the fruit dries, this pulp contracts into a pellicular 

 covering that closely invests the black external tunic of the seeds, 

 and within the substance of which numerous spiral vessels are 

 distributed. It appears to me that this pulp is a secretion 

 originating from the funicular point of attachment of each seed 

 to the placenta, rather than an emanation from the entire 

 surface of the cell ; for round the hilar foramen in the seed of 

 Lardizabala there exists a light-coloured annular cicatrix, which 

 probably indicates the organic point of connexion of the pulpy 

 envelope with that part of the external tunic, as described in 

 the manner above-mentioned in Decaisnea, and which also forms 

 the point of its junction with the placenta; for it will be shown 

 that within a cavity of the external tunic there exists an expan- 

 sion of the funicular mass, which evidently maintains that con- 

 nexion through the hilar foramen before alluded to. 



There are some peculiarities in the structure of the seed in 

 Lardizabala that are worthy of attention. The seeds are ovoid, 

 unequally gibbous, always more or less compressed, somewhat 

 angular by the force of mutual pressure, and straighter upon 

 the face next to the pericarp. The hilum, situated below the 

 middle upon this face, consists of a rather small and somewhat 

 oval aperture, which is filled with a fungous substance that be- 

 comes fleshy when moistened, and which is continuous with 

 a mass of similar substance filling a large cavity within the 

 tunic. This outer tunic, usually considered as the testa, is 

 dark-coloured, thin, and somewhat chartaceous ; and within it 

 is found an inner coating consisting of two distinct adherent 

 integuments. The albumen forming the enclosed nucleus is 

 somewhat corneous, with a large hollow chamber on the side 

 next the hilum ; the two integuments last mentioned closely 

 invest the inner surface of this chamber, as well as the ex- 

 ternal face of the albumen, but the outer shell is in no way 

 inflected into the cavity. If we cut through a seed longitu- 

 dinally across the line of the hilum, the albumen in this sec- 

 tion appears of a gibbously hippocrcpical form, with a large 

 ovoid hollow space towards the centre ; the two extremities of 

 this horse-shoe are widely apart, the space in the form of a broad 

 plate being filled with the fungous mass before mentioned. If 

 we now cut through another seed in a transverse direction across 



