8 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacez. 
Sciadotenia this emanation becomes elongated in an extraor- 
dinary manner: in this case the number of ovaries is constantly 
. nine, uniserially sessile upon the summit of a columnar gyne- 
cium ; in the course of its growth a process is generated be- 
neath each ovary, which becomes elongated in the form of along 
pedicel on which the fruit is articulated; so that they bear the 
appearance of an umbel of nine distinct flowers, each bearing 
a single seed. This was the inference I drew when I first saw 
the plant *; but I was soon afterwards convinced of the true 
nature of this development, on obtaining a specimen where in 
some of the flowers eight of the ovaries remained sessile and 
abortive upon the gynecium, while only a single fruit was car- 
ried up by the pedicel-like expansion of nearly three times the 
length of the seed. This curious development, which some 
years afterwards was noticed by Mr. Bentham, is evidently the 
growth of the gynecium, not of the ovary, which is articulated 
on its summit, and leaves a scar when it falls off, while the 
pedunculiform expansion remains solidly attached to the gy- 
neecium. 
The structure of the endocarp is deserving of some considera- 
tion. With few exceptions, it becomes hardened into a firm and 
often osseous nut, more seldom into a chartaceous putamen, 
which is sometimes thin and horny. In all the Leptogonee and 
Platygonee, where the cell is curved round a central condylus, 
the outer rim of the putamen is transversely marked with several 
broad and deep crenelures ; and as the shell is of uniform thick- 
ness, the seed becomes indented with corresponding impressions. 
In the Heterocliniee, where the form of the nut is usually oval 
or orbicular, the external surface, though sometimes smooth, is 
frequently covered with tubercular or irregular cristate projec- 
tions ; and sometimes, upon the internal and ventral surface of 
the cell, across each side, numerous more or less elevated cris- 
tate plates project, which enter into corresponding fissures of 
the albumen, much after the manner seen in the seeds of many 
of the Anonacee. In Odontocarya and Jateorhiza, genera of the 
Heterocliniea, and in Hematocarpus among the Pachygonee, the 
putamen is covered with an extremely dense tomentum, formed 
of innumerable fine simple hairs or fibres which are imbedded in 
the pulpy mesocarp. In Anomospermum, the drupes of which I 
examined in the living state, the mesocarp consists of a number 
of fleshy masses, each about a line in diameter, which, by mu- 
tual pressure, are somewhat angular; they adhere together with 
some tenacity, and can only be removed from the putamen by 
force. A number of cancellated furrows, filled with ligneous 
* Ann, Nat. Hist. ser. 2, vii. 43. + Journ. Linn. Soe. y. Suppl. p. 51. 
