486 Mr. J. Miers on some genera of the Icaciuaceae. 



testimony of Reisseck, renounces his former statement, and de- 

 scribes the ovarium as being unilocular, a discrepancy manifestly 

 attributable to different views, entertained at different times, in 

 regard to its affinity, it having been referred at one period to 

 Rhamnaceoe, at another to Anacardiaceae : it is not recorded that 

 such views originated in any careful observations upon its in- 

 ternal structure. Reisseck in addition states, that its ovarium 

 (either 1- or 2-celled) has a single ovule suspended by a long 

 filiform and erect placenta, which rises from the bottom of the 

 cell to near the summit, as in Rhus ; but I have not been able to 

 observe any such feature, and the fact that the seed is suspended 

 from a sti-ophiole which passes through a foramen near the apex 

 of the nut, and which is connected with the cord that descends 

 hence externally to the calyx, militates strongly against the pro- 

 bability of the existence of any such internal connexion of the 

 podosperm with the base of the cavity. In Pennantia we see 

 the existence of a testa and integument furnished with a dorsal 

 raphe and a nearly basal chalaza, which I have not been able to 

 detect in Mappia ; but in the latter case, these features were not 

 distinguishable, on account of the seeds having been long desic- 

 cated, the albumen having become black, the integuments much 

 decayed, and adhering to the cavity of the nut. The seed of 

 Pennantia differs from that of Mappia in having a much smaller 

 and almost terete embryo, placed in the upper portion of the 

 albumen, in which respect it agrees with Apodytes, while in 

 Mappia the cotyledons are of considerable size and foliaccous, 

 as in Celastrus. It should also be remarked, that in the New 

 Zealand and Norfolk Island species, the stigma is described as 

 being large, pulviniform and sessile, exactly as it has erroneously 

 been figured in Stemonurus ; but, as in that genus, this will be 

 seen to occur here alone in the ovuligerous flowers, and then 

 only after the ovarium has attained a considerable increment 

 and advance towards maturity. I have met with fertile female 

 flowers only in the New Holland species, and there three very 

 distinct and equal styles exist ; the ovarium is deeply grooved 

 into three corresponding lobes, each lobe being distinctly 1 -celled, 

 as I have found to occur in Stemonurus. Only one of the ovules 

 in one of these cells becomes perfected, so that the fruit is only 

 1-celled and 1-seeded, but partial deviations from this rule some- 

 times occur. The ripe fruit of this same species is an oval 

 drupe, surmounted by a sessile 3-lobed discoid plate, similar to 

 that observed in the two other species of Pennantia, and in every 

 species of Stemonurus, in Sarcostigma and in Discaphora. As I 

 have traced in Pennantia Cunninghami the existence of several 

 distinct styles or stigmata, and the subsequent conversion of these 

 organs into sessile discoid processes, we may safely infer that it 



