494 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



are thick and hard; they enclose a deeply ruminated albumen 

 (fio\ 306), containing the embryo in a little cavity near the micro- 

 pyle. The radicle is inferior, short and conical ; the cotyledons are 

 diverging and undulate. M. fragrans is a tree from the Moluccas, 

 with all its parts aromatic. The leaves are alternate simple entire 

 petiolate exstipulate. Its flowers are in false racemes, 1 few-flowered, 

 axillary or supra-axillary and pedunculate. Each pedicel has a 

 caducous bract at its base, and bears at a variable height, usually 

 close under the flower, another caducous bract alternating with the 

 two anterior perianth-leaves. 



Myristica fragrans. 



Fig. 305. 

 Seed. 



Fig. 304. 



Female flower, diagram. 



Fig. 306. 



Longitudinal section of seed. 



The other members of the section Ikmyristica have all the same 

 general organization, with from eight to thirty anthers. In Virola," 

 which was formerly made a distinct genus, there are usually only as 

 many stamens as there are perianth-leaves, with which they alter- 

 nate. This too is the case with the section Otoba f but the anthers 



Bot., 380), hold the view diametrically opposed 

 to this, saying that they "have preferred to 

 retain the name of aril for this," hecause, " in 

 the examination of two ovules, we thought we 

 were able to remark that this organ rises more 

 from the base of the ovule than from the 

 exostome, as asserted by A. de Candolle and 

 Planchon." However, we had shown more 

 than three years before that the aril is a 

 thickening which, arising on the right and the 

 left of the base of the ovule, reaches horizontally 

 back to the hilum, and gradually extends on 

 either side to the exostome ; so that the hypo- 

 thesis of J. Hooker & Thomson (Fl. Ind., i. 

 154), according to which the mace is of mixed 

 nature — both arillode and true aril — is the only 



one that comes near the truth. It is an aril 

 produced by both hilum and micropyle. 



1 The female inflorescences of M. fragrans are 

 rather comparable to cymes. In the 3-flowered 

 ones, for instance, we maj T observe this. One 

 flower is central, older, and on a longer pedicel 

 than the others. Where its pedicel separates 

 from the common peduncle of the inflorescence 

 there are two bracts, situated near one another 

 and on the same side ; each of these has a 

 younger pedicellate flower in its axil. 



2 Aubl., Guian._ 904, t. 315. — A. DC, 

 Prodr., 194 (JWyrislicce, sect. hi.). — Sebophora 

 Neck., Mem., 907. 



3 A. DC, in Ann. So. Nat., ser. 4, iv. 30; 

 Prodr., 193 (sect. v.). 



