Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacese. 7 



sometimes a hollow prominent chamber within the cavity of the 

 cell, round which the seed is moulded and becomes fungilliform 

 and attached to it by its short line of raphe and chalaza. In 

 Odontocarya, Jateorhiza, Calycocarpum, and Aspidocarya, the 

 inner face of the putamen is nearly flat, or only slightly convex 

 within, the placenta does not swell and form a vacant chamber, 

 and the seed remains suspended from its normal point of attach- 

 ment, the raphe and chalaza, more or less free from the epicarp, 

 being clearly manifest along the middle face of the seminal in- 

 tegument. Thus it will be found that the fruit and seed, in the 

 several genera, assume dificrent shapes and degrees of develop- 

 ment, to be hereafter detailed, furnishing constant and valuable 

 distinguishing characters. 



For the facility of concisely describing the peculiar enlai^- 

 ment of the placenta, which acts so important a part in the de- 

 velopment of the putamen and seed, I proposed many years ago 

 to call it a condylus, because the seed is articulated upon it as a 

 socket. The use of this term has been objected to (as I think, 

 somewhat hypercritically) by the learned authors of the ' Flora 

 Indica' (p. 169), because they consider it improper to apply 

 specific terms to modifications of structure peculiar to single 

 orders ; and they prefer to designate the same as a " processus 

 internus condyliformis putaminis " — a term more objectionable, 

 because more circumlocutory. If the term "condylus" is to be 

 rejected on account of its use in zoological science, then we 

 ought to discard the words " umbilicus, placenta, vagina, vitel- 

 lus," &c., as well as other designations commonly used by 

 botanists with much advantage, such as " retinaculum, hypan- 

 thium, gynophorus, ochrea, rostellum, corona, labellum," and a 

 number of others peculiar to certain orders. I therefore still think 

 it advisable to give a comprehensible designation to that important 

 development which, in the Menispermacece, oflFers a good and 

 constant character for generic purposes. 



The fruit in the Menispermacea is drupaceous, of an oval, 

 gibbous, or pyriform shape, consisting of a membranaceous 

 coloured pericarp, sometimes hairy, covering a more or less 

 fleshy mesocarp, and enclosing a solid putamen. When the 

 number of ovaries is three or more, some of them prove abortive 

 and fall ofl", leaving distinct scars upon the gynsecium to which 

 they were attached. These drupes are sometimes sessile upon 

 the gynsecium; but in other cases the base of each drupe is nar- 

 rowed and prolonged into a stipitate support, so that there is no 

 immediate contact of the putamen with the gynsecium ; in other 

 cases, besides this stipitated support, each drupe is articulated 

 upon a distinct emanation of the gynsecium, which is pedicelli- 

 form, as in Tiliacora, where it is comparatively short ; but in 



