467 ANACAEDIACEiE. [Htpogtnous Exogens. 



of the consequence likely to accrue from handling it. The doctor stood aloof from a 

 danger which he knew to be inevitable in his own person on near approach or 

 contact. The result was, some of the party suffered severely; the inflammatory 

 action reaching up the arms to the trunk in one in another only as high as the elbows , 

 whilst in a third, the effects were confined to the hands which as is usual in these 

 cases, became swollen, inflamed, and finally ulcerated. The rest mostly escaped the 

 poison. On his return home, Dr. B. found a branch of the shrub in his vasculum, 

 which had been put there by some sceptical joker amongst certain of the party/ who 

 affected disbelief in the poisonous properties of the plant. This he requested his 

 daughter, who was not susceptible of the poison to take out of the box and destroy 

 but at her suggestion permitted it to be dried for his herbarium The next day 

 symptoms of poisoning" came on: intumescence of the emire body and lower 

 extremities, attended with intolerable pain and irritation confined him to bed for 

 several days ; nor was it till after many weeks that he was able to resume his duties. 

 For several years after he was subject to a periodical recurrence of the erisypelatous 

 inflammation, which marks this particular poison. See Lond. Joum. Bot., vu. 160. 



The Genus Sabia, referred doubtfully to this order by Wallich, has been elucidated 

 by Blume and Miers, who agree in regarding it as related to Memspermads ; to which 

 its strictly hermaphrodite flowers are however much opposed. Not having mysett 

 had an opportunity of studying Sabia, I gladly make publ.c Mr. Miers s views, in which 

 all is said that can be urged in favour of the proposed approximation. 



"SABIACE.E. 



"Sabiace*, Blume. Mv*. Bot. Lvgd. Bat. 1, 368, fig. 44-Sabia, Caleb. Linn. Trans, xii. 355, tab. 14.- 

 Wall. Fl. Ind. ii. 308.— Jon. Diet. ii. 69.— Endl. Gen. No. 5927. 



" Climbing plants with alternate exstipulate leaves : flowers small, few, in short 



axillary panicles. Sepals 5, small, marked with coloured dots, persistent and 



unchanged. Petals 5, alternate, oblong, expanded, also marked with rows of 



red glandular dots, imbricate in aestivation, persistent, often increasing in size and 



enclosing the fruit. Stamens equal in number to, and opposite the petals, faxed with 



them at the base of a stipitate hypogynous disk or gynophore, alternate with its 



lobes • filaments shorter than the petals, strap-shaped, fleshy, suddenly contracted 



and sub-inflected at apex into a narrow linear dorsal connective : anthers introrse.. 



round, sub-2-lobed, 2-celled, 2-valved, the valves uniting by their edges upon toe 



septum, along which they burst and gape open, hence appearing as if only 1-celled. 



Disk conspicuous, stipitate, investing base of ovaries with its 5 erect lobes Ovaries 



two at first slightlv adherent into a single obovate body, but soon distmct and 



separated, each 1-celled, with a single ovule attached by its middle to the ventral 



f-ice • styles 2 erect, coherent at first into a single slender, erect, grooved, short 



column/and truncately terminated by 2 hollow points. Drupes 2 rounded, subreni- 



form and supported upon the gynophore with the persistent styles, which are now 



nearly basilar, in consequence of the very excentric growth of the ovaries upon their 



dorsal faces, each containing a single verrucose, reniform, roundish, and somewhat 



compressed nut, with its hollow hilum upon the ventral margin a little below its 



middle Seed solitary, the shape of the nut, attached to the short inflected condyle, 



which proceeds from the hilum into the cell by a short podosperm on its ventral 



margin Embryo exalbuminous, with large fleshy, flattened, somewhat gibbously 



ovoil cotyledons, which are sometimes contortuplicated or wrinkled ; radicle inferior, 



suddenly inflected upon the ventral commissure, ascending and pointing towards the 



U "From the above details, founded upon an analysis of several species of Sabia, it is 

 evident that it cannot be brought within the pale of any known family. Its nearest 

 approach is to the Menispermacea?, with which it agrees in its climbing habit, 

 exstipulate leaves, the presence of coloured resinous ducts and dots in its wood and 

 floral parts, distinct sepals and petals, stamens equal to and opposite the petals, 

 distinct 1-locular carpels upon a stipitate gynophore, surrounded at its base by _a 

 lobed disk, single ovules attached by their middle to the ventral face of the cell, the 

 rapid and excentric growth of the ovaries into a gibbous fruit, by which the per- 

 sistent styles are left in an almost basilar position, drupes with a single 1-cel ed nut, 

 and as in" the tribe Pachygoncic, containing a solitary cxalbumiuous seed, with iarj,c 



