110 



NATURAL mSTORY OF PLANTS. 



and Madagascar. Their leaves are alternate, usually glabrous, 

 more rarely covered with hairs ; the blade is entire or slightly 

 incised on the margin, with the secondary ribs obliquely parallel, 

 very marked ; the petiole is dilated laterally into a pair of mem- 

 branous caducous wings which have been considered as stipules.' 

 The large flowers are solitary, or grouped in terminal pseudo- 

 racemes. 



Rciffcncheidia,- from the Philippine Islands, has all the characters 

 of vegetation and inflorescence of TFormia ; but the calyx consists 

 of more than five sepals ; as many as twelve or fifteen may be 

 counted, imbricated, becoming smaller as they are more external. 

 This unimportant character leads us to consider the single species 

 only a section of the genus TFormia.^ 



We cannot consent to remove any further from the genus Dilletna 

 that of Actinidia,^ which has by some been referred to the Tern- 



utrcsDiiacea,^ hut which possesses a floral organization so nearly that 

 of DiUenia that we may say it only difiers in the form of the anthers. 

 Thus in the flower of ^. strigosa (flgs. 159-164) we flnd a calj^x of 

 five quincuncially imbricated sepals, free, or cohering slightly 



' We liave shown (Adansonia, vi. 271) how 

 it is hardly possible to give different names in 

 Wormia and Magnolia to the broad lateral ex- 

 pansions of the petiole, which fall after a certain 

 time, and which extend to the branch, and 

 so leave on its surface, above the insertion of the 

 petiole, an oblique scar, exactly like those which 

 usually indicate the previous existence of supra- 

 axillary stipules. 



- Pbesl., Reliq. Hicnlc., ii. (1835), 74, t. 62.— 

 Endl., Gen., n. 4748.— B. II., Oen., 13, n. 11. 



^ Wormia luzonensis H. Bn. (see Adansonia 

 vi. 270). — R. speciosa Peesl. — Palali Luzo- 

 nensibus, ex Peesi., loc. cit. 



* LiNDL., Introd. Nat. Syst., 2nd ed., 439.— 

 Endl., Oen., p. 841. — Walp., Rep., v. 131 ; 

 Ann., i. 15. — Trochostigma Steb. & Zucc, 

 Alhandl. Akad. d. Wissensch. Munch., iii. 726, 

 t. ii. f. 2. 



* Benth., Journ. Linn. Soc, v. 55. — B. 

 Oen., 184, n. 14. 



H., 



