Piper. ,] cxxiv. PIPERACE.E. (J. D. Hooker.) 79 



or connate in a semilunar form. Perianth 0. Stamens 1-4, rarely more, 

 filaments short ; anthers 2-celled, cells often confluent by dehiscence. 

 Ovary 1-celled ; style conic beaked or 0, stigmas 2-5 ; ovule solitary, erect. 

 Berry ovoid or globose. Seed usually globose, testa thin, albumen hard. 

 Species described about 500 (probably greatly exaggerated), all tropical or 

 subtropical. 



A most difficult genus, Herbarium materials for the analysis of which have never 

 been intelligently collected, whilst the descriptions of the published species are quite 

 inadequate for their accurate determination. Wallich's Herbarium, and the diag- 

 noses in Vahl's " Enumeratio " and in Roxburgh's " Flora Indica" form the basis of 

 the works of the only two authors who have attempted the revision of the Indian species, 

 namely Miquel and Casimir De Candolle. Of these Wallich's specimens are so mixed 

 that in some cases three or four species are included under one name and number, 

 and even on one sheet ; whilst of Vahl's diagnoses not one is sufficient to identify the 



Slant he means, and of Roxburgh's only one or two species are recognizable. Wal- 

 ch, it is true, often attaches to his specimens names given by Roxburgh, but these 

 are rarely the names that are taken up in the " Flora Indica " or if they are, they 

 do not apply to the plants described in that work. The only considerable collections 

 of Indian Piperacece made since Wallich's were distributed, are Wight's Peninsular, 

 Griffith's Transgangetic Indian, and Thomson's and my own from Sikkim, Bengal, the 

 Khasia Mts., &c. Wight published good figures of several, but confined himself to 

 such as were named by Miquel and to the reproduction of a few of Roxburgh's un- 

 published Icoues, procured from the Calcutta Botanic Gardens. Griffith's specimens 

 were hurriedly collected, with no attempt to match the sexes, or the flowering with 

 the fruiting specimens, for doing which his rapid journeys precluded the possibility. 

 Unfortunately the Ceylon peppers were not thoroughly studied by either Gardner or 

 Thwaites, the only two botanists who- had opportunities for so doing previous to Dr. 

 Trimen's incumbency of the Botanical Gardens, and who will doubtless elucidate 

 them. In the process of attempting (with little success, I fear) to discriminate the 

 Indian species for this work, and to unravel their intricate synonymy, I have been 

 much impressed by the correctness of Miquel's views as to the ordination of the 

 species, and the skill with which he has grouped them. When he undertook to 

 monograph the Order, the materials were very bad, were in a chaotic state of con- 

 fusion, and were so scattered in the British and Continental herbaria, that he could 

 bring no two large collections under his eye at one time. Yet he traced the out- 

 lines of a good system, gave characters to a large proportion of well-defined- species, 

 and founded genera, which though now reduced to sections of one genus are for the 

 most ,part natural groups. In the discrimination and elucidation of specie^ he was 

 too hasty by far. For the rest I must leave the further study of the Order to 

 local botanists in the four great centres of its Indian distribution, namely its trans- 

 gangetie provinces, the South Deccan, the Malayan Peninsula, and Ceylon; in 

 each of which the species should be examined on the spot, with a view to matching 

 the sexes, and flowering with fruiting specimens, and to observingthe transition 

 from young to old foliage, and the effects of locality and climate on the characters 

 of each species. 



Sect. I. lUuldera. Spikes solitary. Flowers dioecious, the males 

 sunk in a fleshy stipitate or sessile receptacle formed of the greatly enlarged 

 bract (and bracteoles ?). Berries sessile ; stigmas sessile. The female 

 plants of this section are imperfectly known, and may possibly be confounded 

 with others. 



* Receptacle of male fl. stipitate. 



1. P. Schizonephros, Gas. DC. in Prodr. xvi. 241 ; quite glabrous, 

 leaves coriaceous elliptic-lanceolate acuminate 3-nerved at the very base, 

 male spikes hoary, receptacles distant stipitate not recurved about 8- 

 androus. Schizonephros glaucescens, Griff. Notul. iv. 383. 



