Ciwceatster.'] cxxv. ^HLORANTHACE^E. (J. D. Hooker.) 101 



erect stem, bearing at the top a whorled fascicle of leaves and many axillary 

 few-fid, short peduncles. Leaves membranous, rhomboidly spathulate, cuneate 

 and quite entire" below the middle, above it semicircular and toothed. 

 Flowers minute, 2-sexual or female. Sepals 2-3, minute, scale-like, per- 

 sistent. Petals 0. Stamens 1-2, alternate with the sepals, persistent, 

 filaments linear flattened; anther subglobose, cells rather diverging, opening 

 laterally. Carpels 1-4, free, linear-oblong, 1-celled ; stigma sessile, oblique ; 

 ovule pendulous from the top of the cell. Ripe carpels oblong, terete, 

 pericarp membranous, narrowed at the base, sparsely clothed with hooked 

 bristles. Seed oblong, testa membranous adherent to the hard fleshy 

 albumen ; embryo in the axis of the albumen terete, cotyledons linear, radicle 

 superior. 



C. a g rest is, Maxim, in Bull. Acad. St. Petersb. xxvii. 556 ; Mel. Biol. 

 xi. 345. 



WESTEEN HIMALAYA ; Kumaon, alt. 8000 ft., Strachey Sf Winterbottom, Duthie. 

 DISTBIB. W. China. 



Stem 3-5 in., ending in fibrous roots. Leaves very many in a solitary false 

 whorl, formed of crowded pairs, pale green, narrowed into a broad petiole and to- 

 gether with it 1-1$ in. long, nerves flabellate ; immediately below the whorl of leaves 

 are two linear 1-nerved ones, which are the primordial leaves. Pedicels shorter 

 than the petioles, very slender. Sepals J B in. long, ovate-oblong. Stamens twice as 

 long. Ripe carpels cylindric, in long, green, tip acute. A very obscure plant, of 

 doubtful or indeed unknown affinity, but regarded by Bentham as near Chloranthacece. 

 It occurs in fields in W. China, and in Kumaon on mossy rocks in woods, &c. The 

 hooked bristles on the carpels are such aids to dispersion that it may be supposed to 

 be common, though so inconspicuous as to be overlooked. 



OEDER CXXYI. IVTYRISTICEJE. 







Evergreen trees, often stellately tomentose. Leaves alternate, quite 

 entire, exstipulate, often pellucid-punctate. Flowers dioecious, small, 

 regular, fascicled umbelled or panicled ; bracteoles persistent or caducous. 

 MALE FL. Perianth 3-(2-4-)lobed, valvate in bud. Anthers 3 or more, 

 connate in a sessile or stipitate column head ring or disk, 2-celled. FEM. FL. 

 Perianth of. the male. Slaminodes 0. Ovary superior, free, sessile, 1-celled ; 

 style short or ; stigma capitate discoid or lobed ; ovule 1, basal, erect, 

 anatropous. Fruit fleshy, at length 2- rarely 4-valved. Seed erect, enclosed 

 in a thin or fleshy entire or lacerate often highly coloured aril, testa thin or 

 crustaceous, albumen hard densely ruminate ; embryo basal, small, coty- 

 ledons rounded spreading often wrinkled, radicle short inferior. Species 

 about 80, Tropical East Asiatic, Malayan and American ; a few African, 

 and one Australian. 



Previous to the publication of the " Flora Indica " of Dr. Thomson and myself, 

 the British Indian Nutmegs were known only through the named but undescribed 

 specimens distributed by Wallich ; for the species contained in Roxburgh's Flora are 

 for the most part from the Archipelago, and were quite undeterminable by that 

 author's brief descriptions. Wallich's types are therefore the foundation of our know- 

 ledge ; but then there are often several species under one name, and most are in so 

 incomplete a condition, that it is impossible to draw up satisfactory descriptions from 

 them alone, and very difficult to identify other collections by them. Nor is their 

 imperfection the only obstacle; more serious ones are, the excessive variability of the 

 foliage of individual species, throughout the genus, in size, form, texture, pubescence 

 and number of nerves ; and the alterations in all these characters in leaves taken at 

 different stages of growth of the same tree. The only other Indian collections avail- 

 able for the " Flora Indica " were Griffith's, and these were assiduously compared 



