188 . JOHN MIERS ON GŒTZIA AND ESPADEA. 
The fruit in Ge. zia is a pear-shaped drupe, the size of a hazel-nut, 1-locular by abor- 
tion, containing a single oval seed, which Wydler describes as being suspended, and as 
having a laterally oblique embryo, half the length of the cartilaginous albumen in which 
it is enclosed ; but he expressed a doubt of the correctness of these facts, having probably 
examined an imperfect fruit, or mistaken a rudimentary for a true embryo, and the 
actual fleshy cotyledons for albumen, under the appearance to which I will presently 
allude. In Zspadea the fruit is a globular, fleshy drupe, about five-eighths of an inch in . 
diameter, slightly depressed and compressed, two-celled, with a membranaceous endocarp 
and dissepiment, each cell by abortion having only one seed, fixed by a small hilum in 
the basal angle of the cell; on the dissepiment is a short axial columella, rising from the 
base to the hilar point of attachment of the seeds, where it ceases; the testa is crusta- 
ceous, formed of fibrous transverse cells, which expand into several narrow wings with 
fimbriated margins, imbricately adpressed in a right and left direction from the front 
towards a prominent black dorsal ridge, which is probably a raphe; the inner integument 
is somewhat membranaceous and opaque; the embryo, which fills the space of the latter, 
is without albumen. In one instance examined, this embryo consisted of two large, very - 
fleshy cotyledons, united at their base by a short inferior radicle, and in the centre be- 
tween the cotyledons, leaving a corresponding impression upon their inner faces, was found 
a small free fleshy body, consisting of a central nucleus and four indistinct lobes, seeming 
like a radicle and four rudimentary cotyledons without any integument. When the seed 
was placed in hot water, in order to extract this body, the latter became soft and almost 
mucilaginous, but it hardened again on drying. That its shape had not been changed 
during its removal, is proved by the form of the impression left on the cotyledons where 
it was imbedded, which is a central hollow with four radiating arms tapering to a point, 
leading to the supposition that it is an accessory rudimental abortive embryo. The second 
seed examined had within similar integuments, a perfect embryo, consisting of four thick 
fleshy cotyledons, three of which were similar in size and trigonoid, the fourth being 
wedge-shaped and an eighth of their thickness, all united at their base by a short inferior 
radicle; here, again, a similar rudimentary embryo was found in the centre of the axis: 
it may be inferred from this repetition that it is a common occurrence in the seminal 
structure of the genus; and if so, it may account for what Wydler thought he observed in 
his examination of an imperfect seed of Gætzia. A pluricotyledonary embryo is a some- - 
what rare occurrence in exogenous plants; and its incidence here, coupled with the curious 
fibrous testa, increases the difficulty of reconciling Espadea with any known natural 
order. 
After this ample description of the relative structure of these genera, it is desirable to 
ascertain their position in the system; but I will preface the inquiry by noticing a memo- 
randum which Prof. De Candolle read before the Botanical Society of France in June 
1856, concerning them. He states that when M. Wydler was curator of his herbarium 
he pointed out, in the collection brought from Cuba by M. Ramon de la Sagra in 1835, a 
plant allied to his Getzia elegans; it appears, however, that, because he could not then 
find in his herbarium a specimen of the latter species in the series of plants of Wydler's 
collection, M. De Candolle inferred that the materials which had served M. PRE in due 
