Calyoanthaoeae. 



67 



Meratia. 

 ( Family Calycanthaceae ) . 



Aromatic shrubs: deciduous or 

 partly evergreen. Twigs rather 

 slender, somewhat 4-sided or 4- 

 angled or roundish: pith moder- 

 ate, somewhat 4- or 6-sided, white, 

 continuous. Buds solitary or 2 

 superposed, sessile, subglobose, 

 with about 2 pairs of evident 

 scales, the end-bud lacking or 

 loosely scaly. Leaf-scars oppo- 

 site, half-round or broadly cres- 

 cent-shaped, somewhat raised: 

 bundle-trace 1, crescent-shaped, 

 sometimes with a minute addi- 

 tional trace at each end:, stipule- 

 scars lacking. Frequently united 

 with the genus Calycanthus or 

 called Chimonanthus. 



A structural anomaly in the 

 Calycanthaceae is found in the 

 occurrence of a series of four 

 vascular bundles outside of the normal zone. Meratia differs 

 from Calycanthus in its 4-sided inner zone, which is cylin- 

 drical in Calycanthus a genus which has been compared in 

 its cortical structure with the very distantly placed family 

 Myrtaceae. Winter-characters of Meratia praecox are consid- 

 ered by Schneider, f. 222; and Shirasawa, 278, pi. 12. 

 Twigs and buds gray-buff. (1). M. praecox. 



Twigs and buds brown. (2). M. retusa. 



Winter-character references to Asimina triloba: Bren- 

 del, 27, 30, pi. 4; Hitchcock (1), 4, f. 1, (3), 8, (4), 134, f. 

 L-3; Schneider, f. 92, 100. Wiesner shows that some Annona- 

 :eae afford illustrations of epitrophy. 



