MR. J. MIERS ON THE HIPPOCRATEACEÆ OF SOUTH AMERICA. 321 
to their unsatisfactory and ill-defined characters, and added, “ that a careful revision of 
the whole order, and a determination of the real limits of the genera is much wanted." 
In the absence of such desiderata, Messrs. Bentham and Hooker *, in 1862, preferred to 
regard the Hippocrateacee as a second tribe of Celastracee, amalgamating, in the 
former, the number of genera into two, Hippocratea and Salacia—thus sinking all other 
recorded genera into synonyms until they are better defined. 
In the mean time, in 1857 +, M. Payer contributed some useful remarks on the order, 
ilustrated by a plate of 44 analytical figures, showing in detail several points of struc- 
ture derived from the examination of five species, partly in a living state, the specific 
characters of which are not given. 
Before determining upon the validity of the claims of the Hippocrateacee to rank as a 
distinct family, it is desirable to offer a summary review of the general characters, 
derived not only from the evidence already published, but from the many new observa- 
tions in regard to structure which I am able to contribute. 
The Hippocrateacee consist generally of small trees, with slender branches, clinging 
for support to neighbouring trees—sometimes of erect trees, occasionally reduced in size 
to mere bushes—all growing in both hemispheres, though more abundantly in South and 
Central America, rarely extending beyond the tropies; the branches are mostly opposite, 
and frequently covered with minute verruculose asperities ; the leaves are simple, gene- 
rally opposite, seldom alternate, having entire or obsoletely serrated margins, and with 
few exceptions are quite glabrous; the stipules, when present, are minute, and so deci- 
duous that they are seldom discernible; they form two interpetiolar teeth between the 
axils, on the margins of the prominent articulation on which each petiole is situated. 
The inflorescence is generally axillary, sometimes two or three panicles in each axil, 
more often corymbosely and bi- or trichotomously divided, more rarely alternately branch- 
ing, having a minute bract at each articulation when alternate, or two opposite bracteoles 
when bi- or trichotomous ; or else the axillary inflorescence consists of many 1-flowered 
pedicels, more or less elongated, issuing from a nodule of small bracts, this nodule being 
either sessile or borne .upon a short peduncular support. The flowers are generally 
small, often minute, usually supported upon short pedicels terminated by a fleshy torus, 
bearing on its margin five persistent semiorbicular fleshy sepals, imbricated in «esti- 
vation, with narrow membranaceous margins either entire or erosely denticulated : 
they have five petals, alternate with the sepals, and two or three times their length, oval 
or oblong, sometimes unguiculated, with a broad membranaceous margin, sometimes 
entire, but more frequently denticulated or pectinately fimbriated, erect or rotately 
patent, inserted round or beneath the edge of the disk, and quincuncially imbricated in 
æstivation  : the petals and stamens, as well as the sepals, are most frequently persistent. 
* Gen. Plant. i. p. 360. + Organog. 161, tab. 35. 
t M. Payer (see Organog. p. 162) says that the mode of sestivation is so peculiar that only two similar instances 
occur in the vegetable kingdom; but I can perceive no difference from the ordinary quincuncial æstivation: the 
anterior petal is always external and somewhat larger, which may be called No. 1, while the four others may be 
numbered successively from left to right; the left margin of No. 2, viewed from within, is covered by No. 1, while 
its right margin points outwardly ; No. 3 is similarly placed ; No. 4, the smallest, is quite internal, with both margins 
