Myricaccse, Plataneae, Altingiaceae, one? Chloranthaceae. 103 



tliat the floral envelopes appear hitherto not to have attracted 

 attention (IM. VI. tig. 11). The male flower (flgs. 9 & 13) diff'ers 

 from those of the families with which Phvtanea? have been asso- 

 ciated as remarkably as the female, so much so as to compel 

 us to look for other relations with which to compare them. 

 The following character is selected from observations which have 

 been repeated at long intervals * : — 



Trees with alternate leaves ; stipules scarious, or leafy and auri- 

 culate. B'lowers unisexual, collected in dense capitula. Male 

 flowers sessile, or elevated on very short pedicels, either quite 

 distinct from each other, or two together so as to form a pair 

 with difficulty separated. Bracte?e consisting of from 3 to 5 

 membranous, oval or obtuse, or truncate scales, fringed with 

 hairs, surrounding the base of the flower, sometimes alternate 

 with the sepals, but having no constant relation to them. 

 Sepals from 3 to 5, but most frequently 3, combined at the 

 base, elongated, with an elevated ridge along the middle, 

 giving them a somewhat plaited appearance, or broad, short 

 and obtuse ; 1 or 2 often smaller or deficient, so as to make 

 the flower appear unilateral. Stamens equal in number to 

 the sepals and alternate with them, crested, and having a 

 thickened connective, opening laterally ; in imperfect flowers 

 reduced to 2, or even 1 only, placed between two sepals. 

 Female flowers surrounded by a perianth like that of the male. 

 Bractea; 3 or 4, so placed that each sepal has one of them 

 opposite to it (in P. orientalis wanting). Sepals 3 or 4, 

 mostly opposite the carpels, elongated, club-shaped, having 

 the internal side somewhat concave and the external rounded 

 or acuminated ; the apex thickened, truncate and projecting ; 

 the base attenuated and incurved to the ovary, to which it 

 belongs. Barren stamens or petaloid bodies usually the 

 same in number as the sepals and alternate with them, un- 

 equal, and irregular in form, unguiculate, colourless, some- 

 times very minute; in im])erfect flowers very unequal or 

 wanting. Carpels 5, 6, or 7, rarely 8; in the smaller capi- 



* In Platanus orientalis there is niucli variety in the apijearance of the 

 capitula of the female flowers : frequently the flowers are so crowded on 

 each other, that their parts become so intermixed as to be undistinguish- 

 able, so that no regular structure of any kind can be made out, which may 

 have been the occasion of the ovary having been regarded as consisting of 

 a single carpel ; in others, especially in young fast-growing trees, there are 

 some flowers which maintain a regular appearance : here and there are 

 seen 5 or 6 carpels forming a wliorl, with their ventral sutures apjiroxi- 

 mated in tlie centre ; and in some large trees, the inflorescence of which 

 consisted entirely of female capitula, the flowers were nearly all distinct, 

 having usually from 4 to 7 carpels. In one specimen of P. Occident alis, 

 also, the flowers were quite as distinct, and the carpels as numerous. 



