8AXIFEAGACEJE. 



405 



flowers, developed before the leaves, are very numerous, arranged 

 in branching racemes, with slender divisions. Tetramcles nudifora 

 inhabits the hottest parts of India and Java. 



Octomeles sumairana? a tree from the Indian Archipelago, with 

 nearly the habit and foliage of Tetramelea'; the flowers are octa- 

 merous. The males have a little hemispherical concave receptacle, 

 bearing a calyx with eight erect teeth, eight small alternate petals, 

 and eight alternipetalous stamens, each formed of a filament dilated 

 at the base, and a long recurved anther. In the females the recep- 

 tacle is a hollow cylinder containing an ovary, with eight thick 

 parietal placentas, and is contracted above to expand again into a 

 cup, which bears on its rim eight calycine teeth 2 and eight super- 

 posed divergent styles, surrounding a deep central depression as in 

 Tetrameles. The fruit is dry. The flowers form long axillary spikes, 

 with a thick rachis. 



Saxifragacea was proposed as a distinct order 3 in 1789, by 

 A. L. de Jussieu ; 4 it is a notable instance of what is called an order 

 "par enchainement." The hundred and ten genera that we give it r> 

 are grouped in twenty series, of which we shall now take a general 

 view : — 



I. Saxifrages. — These alone represented all the true types of the 

 order to A. L. de Jussieu. He admitted five genera, previously 

 known to Linnaeus and Tournefort : Heuchera, Saxifraga, Tiarella, 



401. — T. Grahamiana Wight, Icon., 1. 1956. — 

 Anictoclea Grahamiana NlMMO, loc. cit. 



1 Miq., Fl. Ind.-Bat., Suppl., 336.— A. DC, 

 Prodi:, xv. p. i. 412.— B. H., Gen., 845, n. 3. 



2 The petals, which, perhaps, fall early, have 

 not been observed. 



3 B. de Jussieu \_Ord. Nat. (1759), in A. L. 

 de Jussieu Gen., lxix.] placed them formerly with 

 Sempervivece, and AdaNSON \_Fam. des PL, ii. 

 (1763), 235], among his Pourpiers (Purslanes). 



4 Gen., 308, Ord. II. 



5 Without mentioning those that are of doubtful 

 kinship to the family or placed in it. Of these 

 there are two (besides Ostrearia, which will be 

 referred to below) : 1. Distoinanthera Tuecz. 

 (in Bull. Mosc. (1S62), ii. 328 ;— B. H., Gen., 

 634; — Walp., Ann., vii. 915), a Peruvian or 

 Chilian plant, with simple opposite leaves and 

 pentamerous flowers, possessing fifteen stamens, 



with porricidal anthers, and a partly inferior 



ovary with two or three pauciovulate cells. — 2. 



Cercidiphyllum Sieb. & Zucc. (in Flora (1817), 



72!) ;— Miq., Mus. Lugd.-Bat., ii. 140; — H. Bn., 



in Adansonia, x. fasc. 4; — Walp., Ann., i. 364). 



In this Japanese plant, with opposite leaves like 



those of the Hamamelidece, we have observed 



flowers past bloom, or rather fruits, formed of 



four or less independent carpels, now become 



follicles, like those of certain Cunoniece ; they are 



surmounted by the persistent base of the style, 



and each contains two parallel series of oblique 



seeds, prolonged below into long descending wings, 



imbricated with those of the neighbouring seeds. 



The short woody branches of this plant are covered 



with opposite cicatrices, and end >n a bud, below 



which is the pedunculare flower. The calyx is 



said to be inferior, formed of four coriaceous 



caducous sepals. 



