Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermaceze. 487 
1. Chasmanthera dependens, Hochst. ;—Abyssinia (Schimper) ; 
River Quorra (Baxter). 
2. Chasmanthera nervosa, nob.;— Africa occident.; Bagroo 
River (Mann, 888). 
The details of these species are given in the third vol. of the 
‘Contributions to Botany.’ 
6. FipravuRreEa, 
This genus, proposed by Loureiro in 1793, was not acknow- 
ledged by botanists till I pointed out its validity in 1851: the 
authors of the ‘ Flora Indica’ have recognized the justice of this 
claim, but they have not fully comprehended its true nature. I 
had rightly arranged the genus in the Heterocliniee, but Drs. 
Hooker and Thomson placed it in the Pachygonee, under the 
conviction that a plant collected by them in the Khasya hills, 
which they named Fibraurea hematocarpa, belonged to the 
genus; in this conclusion they were undoubtedly mistaken, as 
their plant forms the type of a new genus (Hematocarpus), near 
Pachygone. There can be no mistake in regard to Loureiro’s 
typical plant, for that exists in the British Museum, but unfor- 
tunately it has neither flower nor fruit ; these desiderata, how- 
ever, are found in other plants from Penang, Malacca, and 
Borneo. Although the fruit in one of these specimens is not 
quite matured, there is sufficient evidence to show that the 
genus is near TJinomiscium: it has an oblong drupe, with the 
style on its apex; its putamen is quite thin and smooth, flat on 
the ventral face, where the condylar process is an internal narrow 
longitudinal carinal projection, running from the base to the apex, 
to which the seed is attached near its summit. In its imperfect 
state, the enclosed seed is oval, nearly flat (by compression in 
drying), the albumen is not fully grown, but the incomplete 
embryo, with divaricated cotyledons, is sufficiently ‘perceptible 
to show the nature of the structure. The above-mentioned 
authors repudiate the notion that the petals are agglutinated to 
the stamens, and say they have searched in vain for a confirma- 
tion of the fact; but how can we otherwise explain the nature of 
the projecting frill-like appendage, apparently part of a mem- 
brane that surrounds and seems to embrace the filaments ; it 
is easy to insinuate a point some way down between that ap- 
pendage and the anther-cells which it partly conceals. In 
Anomospermum each filament is enclosed within a free fleshy 
petal that entirely embraces it, leaving only the anther visible ; 
and if we conceive these to be agglutinated together, we shall 
have precisely such a stamen as we find in Fibrawrea: it cer- 
tainly is not an established fact, although it is a fair inference, 
and we may expect to meet with the proof at some future time, 
