Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacez. 7 
sometimes a hollow prominent chamber within the cavity of the 
cell, round which the seed is moulded and becomes fungilliform 
and attached to it by its short line of raphe and chalaza. In 
Odontocarya, Jateorhiza, Calycocarpum, and Aspidocarya, the 
inner face of the putamen is nearly flat, or only slightly convex 
within, the placenta does not swell and form a vacant chamber, 
and the seed remains suspended from its normal point of attach- 
ment, the raphe and chalaza, more or less free from the epicarp, 
being clearly manifest along the middle face of the seminal in- 
tegument. Thus it will be found that the fruit and seed, in the 
several genera, assume different shapes and degrees of develop- 
ment, to be hereafter detailed, furnishing constant and valuable 
distinguishing characters. 
For the facility of concisely describing the peculiar enlarge- 
ment of the placenta, which acts so important a part in the de- 
velopment of the putamen and seed, | proposed many years ago 
to call it a condylus, because the seed is articulated upon it as a 
socket. The use of this term has been objected to (as I think, 
somewhat hypercritically) by the learned authors of the ‘ Flora 
Indica’ (p. 169), because they consider it improper to apply 
specific terms to modifications of structure peculiar to single 
orders ; and they prefer to designate the same as a “ processus 
internus condyliformis putaminis ”—a term more objectionable, 
because more circumlocutory. If the term “condylus” is to be 
rejected on account of its use in zoological science, then we 
ought to discard the words “ umbilicus, placenta, vagina, vitel- 
lus,” &c., as well as other designations commonly used by 
botanists with much advantage, such as “retinaculum, hypan- 
thium, gynophorus, ochrea, rostellum, corona, labellum,” and a 
number of others peculiar to certain orders. I therefore still think 
itadvisable to give a comprehensible designation to that important 
development which, in the Menispermacea, offers a good and 
constant character for generic purposes. 
The fruit in the Menispermacee is drupaceous, of an oval, 
gibbous, or pyriform shape, consisting of a membranaceous 
coloured pericarp, sometimes hairy, covering a more or less 
fleshy mesocarp, and enclosing a solid putamen. When the 
number of ovaries is three or more, some of them prove abortive 
and fall off, leaving distinct scars upon the gynecium to which 
they were attached. These drupes are sometimes sessile upon 
the gynecium; but in other cases the base of each drupe is nar- 
rowed and prolonged into a stipitate support, so that there is no 
immediate contact of the putamen with the gynecium; in other 
cases, besides this stipitated support, each drupe is articulated 
upon a distinct emanation of the gynexcium, which is pedicelli- 
form, as in Tiliacora, where it is comparatively short; but in 
