INTRODUCTION. Ill 



fails to give even a short diagnosis of his genus, and adds no figures. But, 

 judging from the detailed accounts given by the author of the tribus 

 1> if a rife, which comprises two genera, Bifarin and Korthalsella, Bifaria 

 seems to have male flowers with stamens opposite to the perianth-lobes, as is 

 the case with Korthalsella. In establishing Si/aria, the author distinguishes 

 at least as many as .36 -species, including Viscum japonicum THUNB. The 

 latter plant has, however, a unique character, not found in any other 

 lorauthaceous plant, i.e. it has stamens alternate to the perianth-lobes. 

 Although VAN TIEGHEM gives no remarks as to the species on which he 

 established Ids genus, yet it can be easily conjectured that the genus was 

 founded on a species other than Viscum japonicum. Yet, at the same time, 

 it can be inferred that VAN TIEGHEM overlooked the above mentioned unique 

 diameter present in all species of Bifaria and consequently placed the genus in 

 the same tribus as Kwilialsella. All these ambiguities would never have 

 arisen, had the author but furnished a full description of his new genus or 

 figures illustrating it. 



This confusion being, for the present, set aside, it is certainly a 

 remarkable fact that Viscum japonicum has stamens Avliich are arranged 

 alternately to the perianth-lobes and two-celled anthers which are perfectly 

 united with one another at the center of the flower, but quite free from the 

 perianth-lobes, and which burst, when mature, in the connate suture, or 

 open with a single central pore. In respect of the relative position of 

 stamens to the lobes, the genus, Pseudixus, stands without a parallel. No 

 flower with this staminal arrangement has ever been recorded in any other 

 plant of the family. As the relative position of stamens is generally considered 

 an important basis and is almost universally depended on in systematizing 

 flowering plant, Pseudixus should certainly, by itself, be regarded as constituting 

 a new tribus, which I propose to call Pseudixere.* 



*For the diagnosis of the new tribus, see p. 187. 



