BILLENIAGE^. 115 



Few of the Dilleniacece are herbaceous ; none but a few of tlie 

 Hihhertias, especially //. ^rossnlariafolia, and also the Acrotremas, 

 which in habit and by their simple leaves, entire, pinnatisect, or 

 lyrate, resemble certain Banunculacece or Fragariece. Nearly always 

 the branches are woody, at least towards the base ; they are often 

 also trailing and twining. Cruger' has studied the anatomy 

 of several of these lianas, especially of BoUocarpus Bolandri and 

 Curatella. But the only character made out in these plants has been 

 an abnormal arrangement of the vascular bundles, which seems 

 simply to depend on their sarmentose nature, and is found in the 

 lianas of many other orders ; namely, the very clear marking out 

 of the different concentric zones of wood, and the frequent occur- 

 rence of supplementary woody bundles, quite isolated in distinct 

 parts of the cellular matrix which constitutes the medullary rays 

 and cortical parenchyma. No one, hardly, had investigated the 

 anatomical characters common to all those Bilhiiiacece which have 

 not a climbing stem ; and we think it right to reproduce here the 

 facts we have recently published' on the subject. 



"All the Billeniacea are rich in bundles of raphides. In the 

 cultivated CandoUeas and Hihhertias we find them abundantly in 

 the cortical cells, the pith, and the parenchyma of the leaves. In 

 the pith of Dillenia speciosa, Thunbg., are found cells containing 

 enormous packets of these crystalline needles. All the other cells, 

 and often the woody fibres also, are at certain seasons gorged with 

 starch granules, which here, as in CandoUea, Hihhertia, and so 

 many other woody plants, are secreted and re-absorbed to subserve 

 nutrition — a fact too general, and known too long to be worth dwelling 

 long upon here. In all the Australian species we have examined 



and Pleurandrea-. We know well, too, that each. It is nevertheless true that there is rc:ill y 



CandoUea and nibheriia are closely related, in practice uo hesitation in dlsting-uishing a llih- 



for there are Mihbertins with oligandrous bundles berllahom a CandoUea. If there were doubtt'nl 



when adult, like H. lepidota R. Bit., that cases, it would prove that our classitications 



form a transition between them; and C. J. DE are perfectible, and are always wronij in puttiuij 



COEDEMOY has shown {Bull. Soc. Bot.Fr., vi. forth an absolute claim to the title "natural;" 



450) how likely it is that the two types will but so far as we know, none avoids this incon- 



some day be fused into one. It is further very venience. 



well known that organogenic researches have i j^i^iggj. Beitrdge z. Kenniniss von soffe- 



shown in both genera the existence of distinct „„„„(gn anomnlen llohhlld iiqvn des Dicolyleu- 



alternipetalous bundles, and that the clear di_s- i-iammes (Hot. Zeil., 1850, IGG, t. iv). 

 tinction into tliesc bundles is no longer visible in .» • j o • 



the adult tiower of Hlbhertia, simply because " Comptes Rendms de V Academie des Unencen, 



of the immense multiplication of the elements of Ixiv. 2!)7 ; Adansoina, vn. 88. 



I 2 



