Mr. J. Miers on Bursinopetalum. 2Q21 
that the Halesiee have been made a tribe of the Styracee, Burst- 
nopetalee may be considered a second tribe of the Aquifoliacce, 
the Jlicinee being the first. 
I will add, in justice to Mr. Thwaites, that three years sub- 
sequently to his note before mentioned, in his ‘ Enumeration of 
Ceylon Plants’ (1858), he abandoned his former conclusion ; for 
he there classes Bursinopetalum among the Olacacee, meaning, 
I presume, in Mr. Bentham’s tribe Jcacinee. Mr. Thwaites has 
thus ignored the unquestionable grounds upon which the Icaci- 
nee must remain separated from Olacacee. The Icacinacee, 1 
have shown, must be a distinct order, contiguous to the Aqui- 
foliacee, the one only differing from the other in the sestivation 
of the corolla. This last arrangement of Mr. Thwaites brings 
Bursinopetalum close to the place I have assigned it ; and if the 
zestivation of its corolla had been truly valvate, his determination 
would have been perfectly correct, according to the Candollean 
arrangement; but as the case is otherwise, the genus falls into 
Aquifoliacee, under the condition above proposed. 
Mr. Thwaites is perfectly correct in his statement that the 
raphe is on the face of the seed opposite to the projection in the 
cell round which the seed is folded, but is wrong in his infer- 
ence that, because it is so, such a projection can have nothing to 
do with the placenta: the fact is that not only in this instance, 
but in others of this family, as also in different orders of the 
Celastral alliance, and particularly, as I have demonstrated, in 
the Jcacinacee, the raphe is frequently dorsal; and I have ven- 
tured to explain the cause of this occurrence in my memoir on 
the development of the anatropal ovule*. Mr. Thwaites has been 
unable to discover any incomplete dissepiment in the fruit of this 
genus, but only an inflexion of the putamen: this is simply a 
difference in terms; for it is undeniable that such a thick semi- 
septum exists, and is well figured by Dr. Wight (Icon. 956. f.8). 
In the ovary, the rudiment of this projection is seen in the pa- 
rietal nervure which extends from the apex to the base, and 
from the summit of which the ovule is suspended, as in Vil- 
laresia; this nervure, in both instances, is the displaced axis of 
the abortive cells, and contains the nourishing-vessels of the 
placenta. 
The incrassation of the summit of the ovary in this genus 
assuming the appearance of an epigynous disk is notan uncommon 
feature even in the superior ovary, as I have long ago indicated 
in Hyoscyamus, in most of the Olacacee+, Santalacee, Icacinacee, 
and Styracee, 
* Ann. Nat. Hist. 3 ser. iv. 24; Contributions to Botany, i. 209. 
+ Ann. Nat. Hist. 2 ser. viii. 177; Contributions to Botany, i. 37. 
Ann, & Mag. N, Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. ix. 16 
