Structure o/'M«"Eliretiacci^ and Cordiacca\ 3S7 



to a small basal clialaza ; at the base of tlic nut, on the same 

 side, a compressed open channel is seen, leading to the small 

 abortive cells, filled with a chord of nourishing vessels which 

 communicate with the hilum of the fertile seed. I have exa- 

 mined the ovaries and fruits of many Brazilian species of 

 Cordia^ all giving nearly similar results ; and we may infer, 

 from the preponderance of all this evidence, with a tolerable 

 degree of confidence, that the ovules in the ovary or the 

 seeds in their nuts are never affixed to tlie base of the cells, 

 but are always attached nearer their middle, either above or 

 below it, in the internal angle. In addition to this evidence, 

 Roxburgh affirms of C. serrata that its ovules are affixed in 

 the axis. 



The (Jordia Myxa of Roxburgh ap])cars to me a very dif- 

 ferent ]dant from that figured by Wight, under that name, in 

 his ' Illustrations,' in which the leaves are larger and the fruit 

 is more than double the size. I have examined the fruit of 

 Cordia ohlongifoUaj Thw., which corresponds completely in 

 size, especially in the persistent calyx, with the figure of 

 C. Myxa in Wight's ' Illustrations.' Here the drupe is almost 

 globular, with a short conical apex, and is seated in a thick, 

 striated, cupular calyx, with a denticulated margin ; the peri- 

 carp is extraordinarily thick, composed of numerous coarse 

 woody fibres, after the manner of a cocoa-nut, within Avhich 

 is a fleshy mesocarp that envelops the nut : this nut is scarcely 

 more than half the length and one-third the breadth of the 

 pcricarj), and is marked externally with a few deep hollow 

 })unctares ; it has two fertile cells (the other two being abor- 

 tive), with a large hollow cavity in the base, which is con- 

 tinued up the axis in a narrow channel which is open at the 

 toothed a})ex of the nut ; here the seed in each cell is attached 

 by its middle, certainly not below it, at the point where the 

 placentary vessels from the central columella enter the cells 

 in communication Avith the descending rajihe, Roxburgh's 

 Cordia moiini'ca has a much smaller druj)e, which is oblong, 

 only ^ inch long, with a much thinner, librous pericarp, and 

 a fleshy mesocarp covering a nut Avhit-h has only a single 

 seed, attached near its middle. Cvrdia Buniamensis^ Bl., a 

 species closely allied to the above, lias an oblong a})iculated 

 drupe, longer and nan'owcr than in C. ohlongifoh'a, seated in 

 its cupular calyx : the nut is 1 -celled, with the indications of 



thin waxy albumen ; it is polished inside, and marked with several lon- 

 gitudiniil niMve-lilce linos, produced by pressure between tlie plioatures of 

 the cotyledons: but both these intepunients are quite void of any vessels, 

 except those of the raphe, whicli are enclosed in a sheath imbedded 

 between them. 



