4^ Mr. J. Miers on the Tricuspidarieae. 



cup-shaped disk, in the bottom of which the ovary is placed ; 

 the fifteen stamens are in five phalanges, three being fixed bi- 

 serially upon each angle of the disk, two of them more inter- 

 nally than the other, the filaments rising out of as many pro- 

 minent foveated articulations ; and in this manner all the sta- 

 mens are opposite to the sepals and none face the petals. In 

 Friesia the twelve stamens are arranged in a single whorl op- 

 posite to the sepals and petals alike, and they are fixed around 

 the ovary within and independent of the fleshy glands. The 

 difference is, therefore, that in one case the stamens are borne 

 upon the disk, and in the other are situated within the disk. 



In Aristotelia the fruit is extremely baccate, the mesoderm 

 being copious, fleshy, and capable of fermentation ; so that the 

 berries are used by the natives of Chile in the fabrication of a 

 kind of wine, of which they are very fond. In Friesia the 

 fruit, though indehiscent and of similar form, has a dry testa- 

 ceous pericarp. It is three-celled in the former, 4-locular in 

 the latter. 



In Aristotelia the outer fleshy integument of the seed is 

 furnished, below the hilum and above the chalaza, remote 

 from both, with an enlargement in the form of a horny laminar 

 prolongation, decurrent for some distance, and then arched 

 over involutely ; it appears like a sacciform duplicature of the 

 integument, filled with long corneous cells. Where only one 

 seed is perfected, this process is either superior or inferior, 

 according as the upper or lower ovule is fertilized ; when two 

 seeds are matured, which are always superposed, the process 

 is seen upon one seed on the right hand of the line which se- 

 parates them, and upon the left in the other. This appendage 

 is not unlike that figured by Gaertner in Ganitrus {Elwocarpus 

 serratus)j ii. p. 271, tab. 140, and is often seen in the seeds of 

 ElxBocarpus and Monocera : it has not before been noticed in 

 Aristotelia by any botanist, except Prof. Agardh, who, in his 

 ^ Theor. Syst.' p. 276, alludes to it as appearing upon the 

 " putamen." In Friesia the corresponding fleshy tunic is 

 quite smooth, without any such appendage. 



In Aristotelia the second or osseous tunic is externally quite 

 smooth ; in Friesia it is always very tuberculated. 



It appears to me, therefore, that with so many and such 

 prominent diflerences of structure, it must be conceded that 

 Friesia has little to justify its amalgamation with Aris- 

 totelia. It oflers a much closer approximation to Vallea. 



Gay states that in Aristotelia the typical plant has velvety 

 stipules, which are very caducous. I have never perceived 

 any indications of them ; and they do not appear in the 

 drawing I made of the living plant forty-five years since. 



