482 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



and in his memoirs 1 divided it into a large number of genera, which 

 have only been considered sections of Piper and Peperomia by the 

 most recent authors, especially C. De Candolle. 2 This botanist 

 retains as distinct genera the two just mentioned, and Verhiellia 

 and Chavica. 3 These four have the following characters in common : 

 a single one-celled ovary, with a nearly basilar suberect orthotropous 

 ovule ; a one-seeded berry and a double albumen, just as in Saururea. 

 The flowers are naked, unisexual or hermaphrodite, spicate or race- 

 mose. Of this series C. De Candolle makes two tribes, Piper ea 

 and Peperomiea, according as the fibro-vascular system in the stem 

 is simple or double. 



III. Ch lor an the.*:. — The genus Chloranthus was classed by A. I±. 

 de Jussieu 4 with Loranthads, and by Sprengel 5 with Caprifoliads. 

 K. Brown 6 was the first to make it the type of a distinct order, 

 retained as such by all recent botanists. 7 Nearly all have judged it 

 akin to Piperacea, but they kept it distinct, while we include it in 

 the latter order as a mere tribe or series. It is distinguished by the 

 insertion of the ovule, near the apex of the posterior wall, instead of 

 near the base of the ovary ; and we have shown 8 that the ovule thus 

 becomes descending instead of ascending. The direction seems also 

 connected with the perigyny of Chloranthus, where the ovary is partly 

 inferior. The flower is, according to our view, hermaphrodite, with 

 a unilateral gynseceum. 9 This series also contains Ascarina,™ left by 



1 Pisput. Tax. et Geogr. de Piper ac. {Com- " Lindl., Veg. Kingd., 519, ord. 197 (Chlor- 

 ment., i.), Lugd. Eat. (1839) ; Ohs. de Piperac. anthacece). — Ekdl., Gen., 264, ord. 80. — 

 (Comment., ii.), Lugd. Bat. (1840); Syst. Pipe. C. J. DE Coedem., in Adansonia, iii. (1863), 

 rac, Roterod. (1843-44), 8vo. 280.— H. A. de Solms, in DC. Prodr., xvi. sect. 



2 Mem. stir la Fam. des Piperacees (in Mem. i. 472. ord. 188. 



Soe. Geneve, xviii. p. ii.) ; Prod,:, xvi. sect. i. 8 Sur la Position des Chloranthacees (in 



235 fo , ord. 186. Adansonia, x. 138). 



3 Besides Dvgagelia Gaudich., which we 9 This view is shared by most authors, and 

 have referred to Peperomia, and Symbryon only confirmed by what we know of the flower 

 Geiseb. (Cat. PI. Cub., 64), unknown to us, and in Piperem. However, C. J. de Coedemoy (in 

 considered by C. De Candolle (Prodr., 471) as Adansonia, iii. 288) applies to Chloranthus the 

 a doubtful genus. It is a knotty shrub, with theory which gives Euphorbia monoecious flowers, 

 alternate leaves and diclinous flowers. The and regards the stamens as a cyme (lateral tri- 

 females, alone known, have a single uniovulate floral biparous) of monandrous flowers, while the 

 ovary, surmounted by a sessile stigma, and ac- gynseceum represents a terminal female flower, 

 eompamed by two lateral scales. whence his expression that in Chloranthece we 



In Ann Mus., xii. 299. h ave "pseudo-hermaphrodite flowers." 



Anl. z. Kenntn. d. Geic., ii. 620. io FoRST Char . Gen . n 776 \ 

 In Pot. Mag., n. 2190 (1820) ; Misc. 



Works (ed. Benn.), i. 215; ii. 67l (Chlor- 



anthea). 



