280 Miscellaneous. 
de leur ailes forme une sorte de pouche pres du carpe” (should be 
elbow). ‘‘ C’est ce qui avait fait nommer par Illiger Saccopteryz, celui 
de ces genres qui comprend les Taphiens.” 
J. E. Gray. 
ON THE OFFICINAL SPECIES OF PEPPER. By M. Mique. 
Miquel, like Jussieu, De Candolle and Endlicher, places the Pipe- 
racee among the Dicotyledons, as the embryo in germination exhi- 
bits two regular seed-lobes, which are uncommonly small, and so 
difficult to discover while the embryo in the ripe seed is enclosed in 
the permanent embryo-sac, half sunk in the apex of the albumen, 
that very recently this was regarded as the only cotyledon. 
The Piperacee belong to the imperfect Dicotyledons, and stand 
best among Endlicher’s Juliflores, somewhere near the Betulacee, and 
in the vicinity of the Uréecacee, with which indeed Jussieu united 
them. The family is evidently quite tropical, the species being 
dispersed universally over the torrid zone of the earth; the indivi- 
duals are most abundant in the hot parts of America, and propor- 
tionally rare in tropical Africa. ‘The American are almost all gene- 
rically, or, with the exception of one truly cosmopolitan species, at 
least specifically different from those of the Old World. 
Miquel divides the Piperacee into two tribes, the first of which, 
Piperomiee, comprehends the herbaceous with axillary catkins, an- 
drogynous flowers and anthers one-celled in dehiscence. ‘They are, 
with very few exceptions, American, and none are employed offi- 
cinally. 
The second tribe, Pipere@, contains the shrubby and arborescent 
species. Their catkins are situated opposite the leaves; flowers 
mostly dicecious, the female exhibiting several distinct stigmas, the 
males with two-celled anthers. ‘To the first division, characterized 
by permanent stipulz and numerous sessile catkins, belong the genus 
Pothomorphe, Miq., of which many species, especially Pothomorphe 
umbellata, Miq., have pungent aromatic roots, which, under the name 
of Caapeba, are used in Brazil as stomachics and sudorifics. 
The root of Macropiper methysticum, Miq., possesses similar qua- 
lities. It is used in the South Sea islands in the preparation of an 
intoxicating drink (highly pernicious in its effects), called Awa or 
Kawa, and has lately been made use of in medicine in England 
under the name of Radix Awe. 
Of the true Piperee, which are separated from the preceding 
division by deciduous stipule and solitary catkins, two genera in 
this first volume are to be noticed here :—Chavica, Miq. and Cu- 
beba, Miq. 
I. Genus Chavica, Miq.—Flowers dicecious. Bracts of the male 
like those of the female catkins, shortly stalked, almost four-angled, 
shield-shaped. @ Stamens 2, with two-celled anthers. 9 Style 
very short or wanting. In the latter case the 3-6 thick stigmas are 
immediately sessile on the ovate ovarium. The berries unite with 
the permanent bractez and the thickened axis of the catkins into a 
fleshy fusiform fruit. Seeds longish or almost lenticular, with scaly, 
