84 MR. D. OLIVER ON SYCOPSIS, A NEW GENUS OF HAMAMELIDE.E. 
species of East Indian Fici. Until the calyx-tube be laid open by dissection, the ovarium 
of the young fruit appears quite inferior. 
The foregoing description of Sycopsis rests upon specimens met with in the course of 
arrangement of the late William Griffith's herbarium. These, although very numerous, 
appear to be all of one gathering, and, unfortunately, are almost all a little too far advanced 
to enable me to furnish, from a sufficient number of female flowers, complete details of 
their earlier condition. It was indeed not without a close examination of the specimens, 
that a few glomerules bearing staminate flowers were obtained for analysis. The examples 
being unaccompanied by any MS. of Mr. Griffith's, it is not improbable they may have been 
obtained by some of the collectors despatched by that most zealous botanist to the Khasia 
Hills, and that he had not had an opportunity of examining better ones himself. 
In his roughly published posthumous ' Itinerary Notes,' I do not find any description 
referable to them. Erom the available material (which offers several peculiar points of 
structure), assisted by a drawing of Mr. Pitch's, I believe, however, that I am warranted 
in seeking permission to bring it before the notice of the Iinnean Society, especially as 
a further interest attaches to what may be termed the constitution, as well as to the 
geographical distribution, of the natural order to which it manifestly belongs, as I shall 
endeavour in the course of this memorandum further to indicate. 
In northern India we are already acquainted with six species, belonging to as many 
genera, of Hamamelide ce . In the consideration, therefore, of the new form, I have tried 
to ascertain whether, after a fresh comparison of specimens, it might not be possible, by 
the modification of generic diagnoses already published, to assign to some one of these 
the Khasian plant. I feel satisfied, however, that such cannot be accomplished with a 
proper regard either to the community of appreciable affinities which constitute and 
characterize natural genera, or to the practice of those botanists (some the most conser- 
vative of comprehensive genera) who have been engaged in the study of this group. I 
consider Sycopsis to be most nearly allied to Distylium (Sieb. and Zucc), a second species 
of which {F>. indicum) has been recently remarked by Mr. Bentham from Khasia. 
To this genus it approximates in the c? ? tendency of the flowers, the absence of petals, 
the structure of the stamens and their insertion in the 6 flower, and the axillary shortly 
racemose inflorescence, — differing from it most conspicuously in the adhesion of the ovary, 
the closely surrounding calyx-tube of the ? flower reaching to the base of the styles, and 
the number of stamens. The calyx of Distylium racemosum is irregularly divided almost 
quite to the base, the ovary superior, and the stamens five in number. The remaining 
uni-ovulate apetalous Asiatic genera, Farrottia, Mistigma, and Tetrathyria, are herma- 
phrodite, and in several respects abundantly diverse — Farrottia in its capitate precocious 
flowers, Fkistigma in the extraordinarily developed stigmata and the presence of alter- 
nating didymous squamse replacing the petals * as in Tetrathyria, which latter genus is 
also further removed by its remarkable anthers, which closely resemble those of Kama- 
metis chinensisf in the produced connectivum and double-valved loculaments. The 
* Or perhaps, with a greater probability, these may be regarded as abortive stamens. 
f In reference to this species, Robert Brown observed, in hi* amount nf Abel's Plants rAnnendix to Abel's Narra- 
