LAUBACEJE. 



445 



veined vertical wings, equal or unequal in size. The body of the acliene 

 contains within its narrow cavity a descending seed whose exalbumi- 

 nous embryo has a short superior retracted radicle, and thick fleshy 

 plano-convex cotyledons. 1 Illigera consists of clinging shrubs, with 

 sarmentose stems and alternate trifoliolate leaves whose leaflets are 

 petiolulate, entire, and acuminate. The flowers form long lax rami- 

 fied racemes of cymes. The ramifications and pedicels occupy the 

 axils of more or less narrow bracts ; and each flower is accompanied 

 by two or three bractlets at its base. Some half-dozen species of this 

 genus are known, 2 all natives of tropical Asia and the islands of Ma- 

 laysia. 



VIII. HERNANPIA SERIES. 



Hemandia? (figs. 273-278), placed by most authors in a very dis- 

 tant group, appears to us 4 to represent the diclinous type of Illigera. 



Hemandia sonora. 



Fig. 273. 

 Inflorescence (f). 



Fig. 274. 



Long, section 

 of male flower (±). 



Fig. 275. 



Male flower 

 (perianth removed). 



The flowers of this genus are monoecious, some being female and pen- 

 tamerous, others male and tetramerous, in the New Caledonian species 

 H. Vieillardi. b In other instances the male flower is trimerous, and 



1 Sometimes grooved on the convex side by 

 one or more irregular furrows. 



2 Span., in Linnaa, xv. 187. — Miq., Fl. Ind.- 

 Bat., i. 1094 ; Suppl., i. 333, t. 1 ; in Mus. 

 Lugd.-Bat., ii. 213. 



3 Pltth., Gen., 6, t. 40.— L., Gen., 374, n. 

 925.— J., Gen., 81.— G^ertn., Fruct., i. 139, 

 t. 40. — LAMK., Diet, iii. 122; Suppl., iii. 146; 

 III, t. 755.— Endl., Gen., n. 2108.— Meissn., 

 Prodr., 2G2. — H. Bn., in Adansonia, v. 188. — 

 Hernandiopsu Meissn., Prodr., 264. 



4 See Adansonia, loc. cit., 190. 



5 Hemandiopsis Vieillardi Meissn., loc. cit. 

 — Hemandia cordigera Vieill., in Ann. Sc. 

 Nat., ser. 4, xvi. 62. This species, it appears to 

 us, should not be separated from the rest of the 

 genus Hemandia on account of the type of its 

 flowers, because they have in other respects just 

 the same organization. Here and there we do 

 find trimerous males and hermaphrodite females; 

 and the former numbers may be found in true 

 Hernandias. 



