52 Mr. J. Miers on the Tricuspidarieae. 



dissepiments ; the piriform seeds are 2 lines long, 1\ line in 

 diameter *. 



5. Crinodendron. 



This name was given to the well-known Patagua of Chile 

 by Molina, who described it so imperfectly that Ruiz and 

 Pavon did not recognize it when they founded their genus 

 Tricuspidaria upon the same plant. Molina gave Cavanilles 

 a rough drawing, showing the flower and seed, made from 

 memory, which the latter described and figured in his ^ Dis- 

 sertationes,' the characters there assigned to it being altoge- 

 ther erroneous. Sir William Hooker, in 1833, described a 

 plant from the island of Chiloe, collected by Cuming, which 

 he supposed to be the same as that incorrectly described by 

 Molina and Cavanilles, and accordingly named it Crinodendron 

 Patagua. In giving an outline of its generic character, he 

 wrongly described the flower as having no calyx, which had 

 fallen away from Cuming's specimens ; the inflection of the 

 petals was not noticed; and the remarkable glands were not 

 observed upon the disk, which was figured as being simply 

 columnar. Gay, in his ^ History of Chile,' erroneously de- 

 scribes the calyx ; but he gives an account of the structure of 

 the fruit, which was not known previously. Crinodendron 

 cannot be said to have existed as a genus until Sir William 

 Hooker first established it in his ^ Botanical Miscellany ;' and 

 he, perceiving its near affinity to Tricuspidaria^ placed it in 

 the jE'/oBocar^ece, notwithstanding the then apparently discordant 

 characters of its floral envelopes. De CandoUe has not noticed 

 the genus ; but Endlicher placed it in his tribe Tricuspidaria; ^ 

 in association with Vallea and Tricuspidaria. Bentham and 

 Hooker, in their '• Nova Genera,' have regarded it as a syno- 

 nym of Tricuspidaria^ evidently unaware of the characters 

 which separate it from that genus. The following is an 

 amended diagnosis, according to my own observations, as far 

 as regards the floral structure ; not having seen the ripe fruit, 

 I have copied the details in that respect from Gay s work, 

 where alone it is described. 



Crinodendron, Hook, (non Mol. nee Cavan.). — Fhres her- 

 maphroditi. Bejyala 3, obovata, apice 2-dentata, dentibus 

 rotundatis, sequalia, parallele nervosa, utrinque adpresse 

 pilosa, gestivatione paulo imbricata, valde caduca. Petala 5, 

 oblonga, sepalis plusquam duplo longiora, extus convexa, 

 imo breviter saccata, lateribus inflexis, apice breviter et 



* A figure of this species, with full structural details, will be shown in 

 my ^ Contributions,' plate 82. 



