THYMELJSAOE^. 106 



ments, of very variable length, i dilated at the summit to a stigmati- 

 ferous head more or less lobed. The fruit is a slightly fleshy drupe, 

 with one or two seeds the fleshy embryo of which is destitute 

 of albumen. Some dozen ^ species of Phaleria are described ; the 

 flowers are arranged in short, often umbelliform, spikes, terminal or 

 axillary, surrounded by imbricate bracts forming an involucre.^ 



Instead of being elongated, as in the flower of Phaleria and 

 of Gyrinops^ the receptacle of Aquilaria may become short, cupuli- 

 form ; so that the perigyny there becomes much less distinct. This 

 occurs in Gonistylus^ a tree from the Indian Archipelago, which has 

 alternate leaves, five sepals, ten stamens, some thirty scales in their 

 intervals, four or five cells in the ovary and a large bacciform fruit. 

 By the form of its receptacle, it is intermediate between the pre- 

 ceding genera and Octolepis^ a genus from tropical and western 

 Africa, whose leaves are alternate^ and its tetramerous and diplo- 

 stemonous flowers have a receptacle almost flat, with an insertion, 

 consequently, scarcely perigynous, and an ovary almost entirely 

 superior, with four uniovulate cells. 



II. THYMEL^A SEEIES. 



We commence the study of this series, not by Thymelcea^ from 

 which it has derived its name, nor by Dap)hne^ the best known 

 representative in our country, but by the most complete types, such 

 as those presented in their flowers by Linostoma * (fig. 72, 73). It 

 may be said of these that, but for their unicarpellar gyneecium, 

 they would be altogether inseparable from Aquilaria.^ They have 



1 '• Genitalibus, more quarunid. Rubiac. etc. vii. 1 {JDrymispermum). — Hook. f. Bot. Mag. t. 

 diroorpliis." (A. Gray, Seem. Journ. of Bot. 5787. — BEmru. Fl. Austral. \i. S7. 



iii. 305.) ^ The genus Skaphium (Miq. Fl. Ind.- 



2 FoRST. Prodr. 33, 192 {Dais). — Wikstr. Bat. Suppl. i. 142), very imperfectly known, 

 Thymd. 349 {Dais). — Gaudich. Voy. Uran. appears tolerably analogous to Phaleria by 

 Bot. 443, t. 44 {Dais). — Bl. Bijdr. 651 its fruit, but it differs, apparently, in its mode 

 {Dais). — Done. Ann. Mus. iii. 41 {Dais) ; of inflorescence. Its flower must be analysed. 

 Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 2, xix. 38, t. 1 A {Dnj- ^ Wall. Cat. n. 4203.— Endl. Gen. n. 2102 ; 

 mispermum); Voy. Venus, Bot. 13, t. 10- Suppl. iv. p. ii. 67, n. 21061 — Meissn. Denk- 

 12 {Drymispermum) ; 17 {Leucosmia). — Zoll. schr. Bot. Ges. Regensb. iii. 293, t. 7; Prodr. 

 Verz. ii. 117 {Drymispermum).—A. Gray, foe. 599, 700.— Nectandra Boxb. Fl. Did. {ed.l832)y 

 cit. 305 {Leucosmia).— Tuw. Fnum. PI. Zeyl. 251 ii. 425 (not Berg, nor BoTtB^.-Fulinostoirui 

 {Drymispermum). — Miq. Fl. Ind-Bat. i. p. i. Meissn. Mart. Fl. Bras. Thymel. 71. 



883 {Psetcdais), 884 {Drymispermum) ; Suppl. i. ^ And Phaleria may have, as we have seen, 



142 {Drymispermum). — Seem. Fl. Vit. 207 a unilocular ovary. 

 {Drymispermum). — F. Muell. Fragm. v. 26 ; 



