SAXIFRAGACEJE. 373 



internal, and from two to five carpels. In S. vitiense, the first species 

 that was known, there are eight or ten stamens, half superposed to 

 the sepals and half alternate with them. In several New Caledonian 

 species the latter alone exist. All are free and possess a didymous 

 introrse anther of longitudinal dehiscence. There are often as many 

 carpels as sepals, and in this case alternating with them. They are 

 sterile or quite rudimentary in the male flowers. In the females and 

 hermaphrodites they are quite free, each formed of a one-celled ovary 

 tapering above into a style, swollen and stigmatiferous at the apex. 

 Inside the ovary is a placenta bearing either one descending ana- 

 tropous ovule, with its micropyle upwards and outwards, or 

 from two to five ovules, similar and biseriate. The fruit consists of 

 from two to five follicles, dehiscing ventrally. The seeds are flat- 

 tened or winged, with a fleshy albumen surrounding the embryo. 

 Five Oceanian species have already been described, 1 trees or shrubs, 

 with opposite or whorled caducous leaves possessing caducous 

 stipules. 



Tetracarptea tas?nanica,~ a small shrub from Van Diemen's Land, 

 comes near Spirceanthemum in the structure of its gyn^ceum. It has 

 tetramerous flowers, 3 with a convex receptacle, four imbricate sepals, 

 as many alternating free imbricate petals, and eight stamens super- 

 posed to the perianth-leaves, possessing free filaments, and basifixed 

 anthers of submarginal dehiscence. The free superior gyna3ceum 

 consists of four independent shortly stipitate carpels, superposed to 

 the petals. Their one-celled ovary tapers above into a short style 

 with a little stigmatiferous head. In the ventral angle of each 

 ovary is a parietal placenta, bearing numerous anatropous pluriseriate 

 ovules. The fruit is composed of four erect stipitate coriaceous 

 follicles, opening down the ventral angle. The seeds are numerous, 

 with a lax membranous outer coat, tapering at either end, and con- 

 taining a fleshy albumen with a little embryo near its base. All the 

 parts of Tefracarpcea are glabrous. Its leaves are alternate or sub- 

 opposite, persistent simple, irregularly dentate, petiolate, exstipulate. 



1 Ad. Be. & Ge., in Ann. Sc. Nat., sex. 5, i. 2 Hook, v., in Rook. Icon., t. 264. — B. K., 



373; in Bull. Soc. Bot. cle Fr., ix. 73. — Vieill., Gen., 11, 618, n. 52.— Benth., Fl. Austral., ii. 



PI. N.-Caled. (1865), 12 (ex Bull. Soc. Linn. 445. 



Norm., ix.). — Walp., Ann., v. 23; vii. 909. 3 Exceptionally pentamerous. 



