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



We may infer that nearly the same changes take place in the 

 development of the seed in Olacacece that Mr. Griffith has so 

 minutely observed in Santalum and Osyris ; for in the ripe fruit 

 of Liriosma, examined in the dried state^ independently of the 

 thickened and lengthened cionosperm, which is pressed into a 

 deep longitudinal groove, formed by its pressure, in one side of 

 the albumen, I find constantly, midw^ay between the axis and 

 this groove, and imbedded in the substance of the albumen, a 

 very distinct, long, cylindrical, membranous tube, which proceed- 

 ing from the base terminates abruptly, by an almost truncated 

 closed apex, at about half the length of the seed; the lower 

 portion, at its exit, is reflected upwards round the base, for a 

 short distance, in a small groove, and is soon gradually lost in 

 the substance of the enveloping integument. We cannot imagine 

 this tube to be anything else than the posterior end of the em- 

 bryonary sac, which in Osyris Mr. Griffith describes as becoming 

 incorporated with the nascent albuminous tissue, but which here 

 appears to remain entire, and its existence in the position above 

 described can only be accounted for by supposing its reduplica- 

 tion during the development of the albuminous tissue. On 

 dividing the putamen, the albumen will be found quite bare of 

 any integumental covering, except at the lacerated margin of 

 the cionosperm, around the hollow space at the base, and about 

 the summit, where it has broken away from the abortive ovules, 

 which as well as the cionosperm become entirely pressed into 

 the substance of the albumen : the rest of the extremely thin 

 integumental covering remains adhering to the inner surface of 

 the putamen ; but whether the external body of the ovule becomes 

 withered and contracted into the substance of the cionosperm, or 

 whether its induvial remains are to be referred to the quantity 

 of colourless, dislocated tissue found between the adherent mem- 

 branes that form the lining of the putamen and the seminal in- 

 tegument, it is impossible to determine from an examination of 

 dried specimens. 



Besides the knowledge of the singular fact of the exsertion of 

 the embryonary sac, and the development of the embryo outside 

 of the body of the ovule, common to the Santalacea, and by 

 analogy to the Olacacece and other Cionospermce, that of the 

 confluence of the albumina of several sacs into one albumen is 

 stated to occur in Viscum album : this however is not quite a 

 manifest explanation of the phsenomenon, for if these were con- 

 fluent, the embryos would not unite at base, but would remain 

 distinct, by the intervention of the confluent sacs, unless we 

 imagine these membranes to become absorbed into the substance 

 of the nascent albumen. Dr. Meycn, on the contrary, denies 

 the fact so minutely described by M. Decaisne, in the memoir 



