216 Mr. J. Miers on Aixtoxicum. 
and, consisting of two adnate lobes, are cordate at the base, where 
they are somewhat dorsally affixed to the pointed apex of the 
filament ; the lobes burst somewhat laterally, each by a longitu- 
dinal fissure, the margins of which contract, so that each appears 
to open by a large broad pore; they are nearly the length of the 
filament, the entire stamens being twice as long as the inter- 
mediate staminodes, the same length as the sepals, and two- 
thirds the length of the petals. Sir Wm. Hooker’s figures of 
the parts of the male flower are very correctly depicted. 
In the female flower, the bract, sepals, and petals are similar 
to the same parts in the male; but the petals in the bud are 
pressed imbricatively upon the ovary, which fills all the space in 
the centre. The five filaments are linear, half the length of the 
ovary, against which they stand erect, are much compressed and 
rendered somewhat emarginate at the summit by the presence 
internally of two small yellow glands, which are the abortive 
anthers : the five alternate staminodes are rather more than half 
their length, nearly double their breadth, emarginate at the 
summit, equally compressed and erect, and stand in the same 
whorl hypogynously attached round the base of the ovary: they 
are all quite smooth; but the ovary is densely covered with im- 
bricated peltate lepidote scales, entirely concealing the style, which 
is suddenly bent down and adpressed upon it: when the flower 
bursts, the style raises itself out of its imprisonment and remains 
still considerably reflexed ; it is smooth, terete, and about one- 
third the length of the ovary, being terminated by a somewhat 
compressed 2-furcate stigma, the forks of which are rather 
acute. The ovary is 1-celled, with two ovules suspended from 
near the summit, affixed by a small point to the apex of an in- 
ternal longitudinal ridge, nearly as in Villaresia, which ridge is 
probably formed of four abortive cells. This becomes deve- 
loped into an oval dry drupe, about 5 lines long and 3 lines in 
diameter, consisting of a somewhat chartaceous indehiscent 1- 
celled putamen, marked internally and externally by the line 
indicating the suppressed axis, from the summit of which two 
seeds are suspended, filling the cavity of the cell: each seed 
is therefore oval and plano-convex; its integuments are mem- 
branaceous, with a small basal chalaza: the enclosed nucleus is 
a fleshy albumen, imbedding in its summit an embryo of half 
its length, with cordiform, broadly ovate, acute, foliaceous coty- 
ledons, and a terete subulate radicle, equal to them in length, 
with its thicker extremity nearly touching the superior hilar 
point of attachment of the seed. 
There may be seen in all these details the very closest resem- 
blance to the structure of Villaresia, the chief points of dissi- 
dence being the presence of the singular floral bract and of the 
