271 a 



PHYTOCRENACE.E. 



[Diclinous Exogens. 



PHYTOCRENACE^. 



" Phytocrenaceie, Mien, MSS. — Phytocrenese, Arnott, Edinb. Sea Phil. Jo. xvi. 314 ; Sndl. Got. 

 p. 828 ; R. Brown in PI. Jav. rar. p, 244 ; Blame Mug. But. Ln/jd. Bat. i. 41, tig. vii. — Phytocrene, 

 Wall. PI. As. rar. iii. 11, tab. 216. 



" Climbing shrubs, with wood marked by strong medullary ray3 with intervening 

 bundles of open ducts. Leaves petioled, entire, or palmately lobed, alternate or 



opposite. Flowers small, $ in axillary 

 panicles sometimes glomerately epicated, 

 9 in capitular clusters upon simple pe- 

 dicels, unisexual by abortion. $ Sepals 

 4-5. Petals 4-5, alternate with sepals, and 

 longer than them, valvate in sestivation. 

 Stamens equal in number to, and alternate 

 with, the petals, introrse, 2-lobed, lobes 

 often distinct upon a fleshy connective, 

 divaricate at base, each lobe bursting in 

 front longitudinally, filaments springing 

 from a more or less stipitate androphore, 

 which has sometimes 10 distinct erect 

 lobes intermediate in pairs between the 

 stamens. Ovary sterile. ? Sepals and 

 petals as in $. Stamens anantherous. 

 Ovarium seated on a stipitate gynophore 

 and confounded with the style, 1-locular 

 (by abortion ?) : ovules 2, suspended from 

 summit of cell. Style thick and columnar, 

 longer than petals, rising directly from 

 the gynophore with the small cell of the 

 ovary in its base. Stigma large, pulvini- 

 form, overhanging the style, sub-bilobed. 

 Drupes either distinct aud small or many 

 agglomerated upon a fleshy receptacle 

 into a great fruit the size of a man's head, each component drupe being 4 inches long, 

 distinct upon a short pedicel, with a single indehiscent putamen, which is scro- 

 biculated and 1-locular, with a single seed attached by a long umbilical cord. 

 Albumen copious, simple, or sometimes corrugated into numerous serpentine plates 

 or granular lobes ; cotyledons large, foliaceous, flat or plicated lengthways ; radicle 

 small, directed towards the hilum. 



" The Phytocreneae were first formed into a distinct group by Dr. Arnott (1 834), who 

 thought they were allied to Hernandiaceaj. Endlicher placed them as a suborder of 

 the Menispermaceae, with which family they will be seen to hold no relation, their 

 only points of resemblance being their climbing habit, the structure of their wood, 

 and their unisexual flowers. By Prof. Lindley the group was not acknowledged, the 

 genera being arranged among A.rtocarpaceae, for reasons stated (huj. op. 270). 

 Mr. Brown lately has supported the maintenance of the family (PL Jav. rar. 224), 

 where he combats the view of Dr. Arnott in regard to its affinity, but offers no 

 opinion of his own on this head ; Sarcostigma is there placed in that order, but 

 almost simultaneously with tliis determination I published my reasons for fixing that 

 genus in a peculiar tribe of the Icacinacea? (Ann. Nat. Hist. Ser. 2, x. 113). Phytocrene 

 has been shown to be identical with Gynocephalum by Decaisne and Trecul, and 

 acknowledged by Blume, who has lately published an ample analysis and character 

 of the genus. Miquelia is there placed by Blume in the same group; but I have 

 offered reasons to show that it cannot belong to the same family, its position being 

 rather near Pyrenacantha (loc. cit.) lodes has opposite leaves, its fruit is small, 

 with simple albumen, aud flat cotyledons, features that differ from Phytocrene ; it 

 is not therefore certain that it really belongs to this group. 



Fig. CLXXXV. bis.— Fructification of Phytocrene macrophylla— after Flume. 1. head of flowers ; 

 2 male flower ; 3. calyx ; 4. head of female flowers; b. female flower; 6. seed: 7. section of albumen 

 and embryo ; 8. ovules. 



Fig. CLXXXV, bU. 



