Structure of the Ehretiaceas and Cordiacere. 387 



to a small basal chalaza ; at the base of the nut, on the same 

 side, a compressed open channel is seen, leading to the small 

 abortive cells, filled with a chord of nourishing vessels which 

 communicate with the hilum of the fertile seed. I have exa- 

 mined the ovaries and fruits of many Brazilian species of 

 Gordia, all giving nearly similar results ; and we may infer, 

 from the preponderance of all this evidence, with a tolerable 

 degree of confidence, that the ovules in the ovary or the 

 seeds in their nuts are never affixed to the base of the cells, 

 but are always attached nearer their middle, either above or 

 below it, in the internal angle. In addition to this evidence, 

 Roxburgh affirms of C. serrata that its ovules are affixed in 

 the axis. 



The Gordia Myxa of Roxburgh appears to me a very dif- 

 ferent plant from that figured by Wight, under that name, in 

 his ' Illustrations,' in which the leaves are larger and the fruit 

 is more than double the size. I have examined the fruit of 

 Gordia oblong ifolia, Thw., which corresponds completely in 

 size, especially in the persistent calyx, with the figure of 

 G. Myxa in Wight's ' Illustrations.' Here the drupe is almost 

 globular, with a short conical apex, and is seated in a thick, 

 striated, cupular calyx, with a denticulated margin ; the peri- 

 carp is extraordinarily thick, composed of numerous coarse 

 woody fibres, after the manner of a cocoa-nut, within which 

 is a fleshy mesocarp that envelops the nut : this nut is scarcely 

 more than half the length and one-third the breadth of the 

 pericarp, and is marked externally with a few deep hollow 

 punctures ; it has two fertile cells (the other two being abor- 

 tive), with a large hollow cavity in the base, which is con- 

 tinued up the axis in a narrow channel which is open at the 

 toothed apex of the nut ; here the seed in each cell is attached 

 by its middle, certainly not below it, at the point where the 

 placentary vessels from the central columella enter the cells 

 in communication with the descending raphe. Roxburgh's 

 Gordia monoica has a much smaller drupe, which is oblong, 

 only \ inch long, with a much thinner, fibrous pericarp, and 

 a fleshy mesocarp covering a nut which has only a single 

 seed, attached near its middle. Gor.dia Bantamensis, Bl., a 

 species closely allied to the above, has an oblong apiculated 

 drupe, longer and narrower than in C. oblongifblia, seated in 

 its cupular calyx : the nut is 1-celled, with the indications of 



thin waxy albumen ; it is polished inside, and marked with several lon- 

 gitudinal nerve-like lines, produced by pressure between the plicatures of 

 the cotyledons : but both these integuments are quite void of any vessels, 

 except those of the raphe, which are enclosed in a sheath imbedded 

 between them. 



