170 Mr. J. Miers on the Affinities of the Olacacese. 



from near the summit of the cell ; so far all accords with the 

 last-mentioned genus^ but it differs in having its ovarium half 

 immersed in the fleshy torus^ which however occurs sometimes 

 in Ilex. Although the ovarium is at first almost superior, it 

 subsequently becomes inferior by the growth of the fleshy torus, 

 or disk, and it is the lower portion only that acquires increment, 

 for the fruit ultimately is invested by the enlarged calyx, now 

 become adnate, and is crowned by its five persistent teeth, the 

 originally superior portion of the ovarium, and the base of the 

 style, forming an umbilical scar upon its summit. The most 

 prominent feature, however, is in the development of the fruit, 

 and its structural resemblance to that of Villaresia ; this is a 

 drupe containing a very thick ligneous putamen of considerable 

 size, which is one-celled ; but the longitudinal parietal placenta 

 seen in the ovarium has now become so much thickened, and 

 extended across the cavity of the cell, as to make it thus appear 

 as if it were almost bilocular, and its single seed hence becomes 

 inflected around the placenta, and made to assume the form of 

 the cavity thus formed, which in its transverse section is hippo- 

 crepiform: the seed, as in the AquifoliacefB, has a copious albumen, 

 with a small embryo near its summit, having a superior radicle, 

 pointed towards its apex. From the identity of this construction 

 to that of Villaresia, we may reasonably conclude, that in Bur- 

 sinopetalum the more normal condition of the ovarium is also 

 bilocular, which indeed is evident from the hollow, or longitudinal 

 slit, lined with a distinct membrane, seen to extend down the 

 middle of the thickened incomplete dissepiment, and which is 

 most probably the vestige of the abortive cell. These facts all 

 tend to prove, that however structurally opposed the Aquifoliacece 

 may be to the Olacacece, they possess so many extei*nal cha- 

 racters in common, as to have led the most expert botanists of 

 our time to confound the two orders, by placing several genera 

 in one family that belong to the other, and vice versa. I will 

 here mention that Pogopetalum, placed by Mr. Bentham in Ola- 

 cacea, differs from that order, and especially from all the other 

 genera of his tribe Icacinece, in which it is placed, by having its 

 ovarium always completely 3-celled : from the lateral position of 

 these cells, it is manifest that their normal number must be five, 

 in correspondence with the other parts of the flower. This would 

 bring the genus nearer in accordance with Ilex, but it differs 

 from that genus and all others of the Aquifoliacece in the aestiva- 

 tion of the corolla. 



In order to prevent the same confusion in future, it is very 

 desirable to reduce the Olacacece within more uniform and cer- 

 tain limits, and I therefore propose to confine this family to those 

 genera that have a free calyx, more or less entire ; four to six 



