328 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacese. 



(vel e ramulo novello brevissimo plures approximati) , folio aqui- 

 longus vellonffior, suberectus, ebracteatus, apice 1-floruSj tomen- 

 tosus : flos parvus. 



The characters of the two following species will be given in 

 my ^ Contributions to Botany' (vol. iii.) : — 



1. Sciadotenia Cayennensis, nob., in Ann. Nat. Hist. 2 ser. vii. 

 43; Benth. in Proc. Linn. Soc. v. Suppl. 51. — In Guiana 

 Gallica : v. s. in herb. Mus. Brit, et Hook., Cayenne (Martin). 



2. clathratttj nob. — In Guiana : v, s. in herb. Hook., De- 



merara. 



49. Tricltsia. 



This genus was established by Mr. Bentham, in his ' Genera 

 Plantarum ^ (i. 39), for some plants from western tropical Africa, 

 some of them with very large, oblong, shining, 5-plinerved 

 leaves with very divaricated branching nervures. The ^ inflores- 

 cence is in two or more short panicles, fasciculated in the axils; 

 the flowers have nine to seventeen sepals in ternary series, de- 

 creasing externally in size, the outer ones bracteiform and mi- 

 nute, the three innermost being always valvate in aestivation : 

 in two of the species the flowers are globular in bud, the three 

 inner sepals being very little larger than the others, very concave 

 and orbicular ; in two other species the flowers before opening 

 are pyriform, the three inner sepals being three times as long as 

 the others, cuneately oblong and acute : one species has no pe- 

 tals and only three stamens; another has three petals and three 

 stamens, the two others having six petals and six stamens : the 

 petals are squamiform, very minute, and might easily be over- 

 looked, being affixed upon the androecium at the foot of the 

 stamens : the stamens are of the length of the inner sepals ; the 

 filaments, erect or much incurved, are thickened gradually up- 

 wards into an almost clavate connective, which terminates in a 

 more or less elongated excurrent point, as in Chondodendron ; 

 the separated oblong anther-cells are half imbedded on each 

 side of the connective ; they are all glabrous and seated around 

 the summit of an elevated androecium, which is surmounted by 

 a dense fascicle of long, stiffs, erect hairs, quite as long as the 

 stamens. The ? flower has similar sepals and petals, no stamens, 

 six or more ovaries, which are stipitated, gibbous, incurved, ob- 

 long, diminishing gradually into an elongated style, very pilose, 

 all the styles con ni vent in the centre, as in Pleogyne. The re- 

 ceptacle of the flower finally grows to a large size and becomes 

 covered with a number of hairy drupes, about the size of a pea, 

 which are almost globular, straighter on the ventral side, with 

 the remains of the style somewhat below the summit, and the 



