496 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Some species are glabrous, others are covered with stellate or mal- 

 pighiaceous. Many are aromatic, with their vegetative organs 

 sprinkled with pellucid dots or reservoirs of essential oil. All the 

 species are tropical, some are American, the rest from Asia, Africa, 

 and Oceania. 



It has often been attempted to tack on the little order formed 

 by the single genus Myristica to some larger group. It has, in 

 fact, many affinities ; first with Protectees and Lauracece, as Robert 

 Brown remarked, and then with Monimiacece, Anonacece, Menisper- 

 macece, and Lardizabalacece. In the two former orders we find 

 aromatic plants, and often dioecious flowers; in the two latter, as 

 in Anonacece, the flowers are commonly trimerous. The albumen 

 is often ruminate in the Menispermacea, always in Anonacece, in 

 which order, moreover, the seed is often arillate, as in Myristica. 

 It is very possible that some day an intermediate type may be 

 found linking Myristica with some one or other of these orders, 

 which shall throw more light on their affinities with it. 1 In the 

 meantime, Myristicacece is well defined by the structure of the 

 androceum, the enormous development of the aril the very 

 marked rumination of the albumen, the form of the small embryo, 

 and above all, by the single perianth with its three thick fleshy 

 axillary valvate divisions. The Lardizabalacece possessing a mona- 

 delphous androceum, however, afford a transition between the 

 Myristicacece with a coherent androceum and the true Berberida, 

 which, like them have a single carpel ; and the dehiscent, though 

 fleshy, pericarp of this order is found in HolbceUia, Akebia, &c. 

 Whatever be the reasons that led Jussieu 2 to place the Nutmegs in 

 the Lauracece, and Adanson 3 to class them with Anacardiacece 

 (Pistachiers),* we are compelled for the present to follow R. Brown, 

 who, in 1810, established the distinct order Myristicacece? 



Most of the plants of this genus 6 are useful for their spicy aro- 



1 Myristica is said occasionally to possess two naceis ajfinitate proximo:, formam earvm const i- 

 carpels instead of one (Bl., Eumphia, i. 179). iuentes inferiorem, floribm diclinibiu monochla- 



2 Gen. (1789), 81, 448. mydeis potissimum distinct am." 



3 Fam. des PL, ii. 345 (Comacum). * Prod,: Nov.-Soll., 86.— Exdl., Gen., 829. — 



4 Reichenbach (Comp., 86) even made tbem Myristicacem Hora>\, Prim. Lin., 61.— Lixdl., 

 Aristolochiads. J. G. Agaedh (Theor. Syst. Teg. Kingd., 301 (part.). — A. DC, Prodr., 

 Plant., 126) considers them : " Schizandraceis et 186. 



Viscaceis evolutione fiorum fere analog a, Alio- 6 Exdl., Enchirid., 119. — Lixdl., op. cit., 



