Mr, J. Miers on the Menispermacee. 15 
anomalous departure from the above-mentioned otherwise uni- 
versal rule. Here, although the radicular end of the embryo 
remains in its normal position, its cotyledonary extremity is not 
directed as usual to the point of attachment of the fruit, but it 
wanders to some uncertain station through a helical channel. 
The putamen contains a single orbicular seed, which is greatly 
flattened and covered by a thin membranaceous integument ; 
from a point on its periphery, just below the persistent style, 
and close to the basal attachment of the putamen, the cell be- 
gins to be intercepted by a thin partition, which curves spirally 
until it terminates in the exact centre of the seed, thus com- 
pleting in its course two and a half gyrations, and the embryo 
is found within the spiral cell of the integument, without any 
albumen. ‘This spiral division is, in fact, the condyle, which at 
its commencement is like that seen in Tiliacora, Diploclisia, &e. 
—where, terminating a little beyond the middle of the cell, it 
divides it into a bimarsupial or hippocrepiform pouch ; but in 
Spirospermum this septiform condyle is continued far beyond 
that point, in an extremely attenuated state, under the form of 
a spiral coil, which reaches the centre in the manner before de- 
scribed. This septiform line is attached to the two opposite 
inner faces of the putamen, as in the other genera; and when a 
knife is passed round the periphery of the putamen, its two 
flattened sides are easily torn away from the adherent edges of 
the condyle, leaving a corresponding helical cicatrix upon the 
two faces, and showing correlative grooves on the outer surfaces 
of the putamen. We might suppose that the embryo would fill 
the entire length of the helical cavity of the integument; but it 
was otherwise in the specimens I examined; for although this 
spiral cavity consisted of nearly three gyrations, the elongated 
slender embryo only extended through half of the first turn, 
the remaining two gyrations being quite empty; the radicular 
end, however, touched its normal point on the periphery, at the 
beginning of the first coil. 
I have explained how the development in Tihacora, Diplo- 
clisia, &c. takes place by the simple process of excentric growth; 
indeed in all the genera of the family, even in the more extreme 
cases just mentioned, the amount of curvature of the integu- 
ment and seed is coequal and symmetrical with the unequal 
expansion of the ovary, and therefore of the pericarp and puta- 
men; but in Spirospermum the one greatly exceeds the ratio of 
the other, as is shown above ; and this forms a solitary exception 
to the otherwise general rule. 
It would be instructive if we could ascertain the cause of this 
singular growth. In all cases the original ovular integument 
grows lengthways; and in Spirospermum we might suppose that 
