192 Mr. J. Miers on some of the Ileliotropiese. 



Fresenius (in 1857), in Mart. Flor. Bras., enumerated twenty- 

 six Brazilian species of Tournefortia^ among which are several 

 belonging to Messerschmidtia ; but he did not adopt this name, 

 even as a section, apparently unaware of the peculiar structure 

 of its fruit : the species of both these genera are therefore 

 indiscriminately mingled together in that work. In order to 

 clear away the mystification engendered by these several dis- 

 cordant views, it appears necessary to define the true limits of 

 Messerschmidtia with greater accuracy — a task of no great 

 difficulty, as I have found its characters constant in all the 

 species I have examined. It may readily be distinguished 

 from Toiirnefortia and Heliophytum by its four monospermous 

 nucules, in which respect, however, it accords with Heliotro- 

 pium ; but it differs from all those genera in the greater length 

 of its narrow acuminated sepals, in the narrow segments of 

 the border of its corolla, which are cleft to the base, in the 

 hippocrepiform duplicature of its carpels, in the depressed 

 form of its 4-lobed fruit, in the extreme curvature of its 

 embry'-o, and generally in its climbing habit. Heliophytum 

 and Heliotropium differ in the very imbricated aestivation of 

 the lobes of their corolla. In Tournefortia^ where the lobes 

 of the border are not cleft to the base, these are simply folded 

 together in a plicato-valvate aestivation, while the intermediate 

 plicatures in the sinus of the lobes make a fornix over the 

 mouth of the tube. In Messerschmidtia the extremely narrow 

 lobes of the border in the bud are quite involute by the rolling 

 inwards of their margins, the aestivation being thus subvalvate, 

 not by the margins, but by the juxtaposition of the rounded 

 inflected surfaces of the lobes. 



Messerschmidtia, K. & Sch. (non Linn.). — Sepala 5, longe 

 linearia, saepe setiformia, erecta, tubum corollae saepe aequan- 

 tia, persistentia. Corolla tubulosa, tubo angusto, plicis 5 

 longitudinalibus sulcato, cum angulis nervigeris, supra me- 

 dium paululo inflato, fauce constricta, limbo ad basin 5- 

 partito, laciniis linearibus vel anguste lanceolatis, stellatim 

 expansis, aestivatione involutiva. Stamina 5, inclusa, infra 

 faucem fere sessilia ; filamenta brevissima, longe supra me- 

 dium tubi orta, tenuia ; antherce obconice oblonga3, tubo 6- 

 plo breviores, imo sagittatae, dorso ad sinum affix^, apicibus 

 mucronatis pilosulis circa stigma fornicatim cohserentes, 

 2-loculares, loculis collateralibus rima longitudinali latera- 

 liter dehiscentibus, glabrae. Discus parvus, hypogynus, 

 margine crenulato. Ovarium conico-oblongum, in stylum 

 gradatim angustatum, disco insitum, 4-loculare, loculis 1- 

 ovuUtis ; ovulo suspense. Stylus longiusculus, filiformis. 



