360 MR. J. MIERS ON THE HIPPOCRATEACEA OF SOUTH AMERICA. 
the panicle is 2 in. long, its peduncle 10-12 lines, the pedicels 1-13 line long ; the petals 
are 3 lines long, 13 line broad; the disk is quite that of this genus. 
3. PRISTIMERA. 
This genus is proposed for a small group of plants, natives of Venezuela, the Antilles, 
and Southern Mexico, all of a similar and peculiar habit. They have very slender 
branches, opposite, very pale, flaccid, extremely glabrous, reticulated leaves, with fine 
nervures, an axillary short few-flowered inflorescence, which is perfectly glabrous, with 
extremely slender ramifications, and very smooth, pale yellow flowers; the sepals and 
petals are very membranaceous, with fimbriately denticulated margins; the disk is like 
that of Prionostemma, but smaller, and with a very narrowly expanded border: the 
capsular fruit consists of 3 extremely compressed rounded carpels, agelutinated together 
along their basal margins for nearly half their length in a flat plane. They exhibit 
another peculiarity: the peduncle and pedicel maintain their slender proportions after 
the growth of the fruit, whereas in Hippocratea and Prionostemma these become greatly 
thickened on the maturity of the carpels, while here the capsules appear suspended by a 
slender thread, the persistent sepals, petals, stamens and disk remaining unchanged in 
their original position. Besides the many peculiarities above mentioned, I have noticed 
a more or less constant irregularity in the ramifications of the inflorescence. In most of 
the genera of this family, where a dichotomy occurs, a pair of opposite bracteoles are 
always seen at the base of each bifurcation; here such a circumstance rarely occurs, 
a bracteole being generally single at each articulation, showing that the ramifications are 
normally alternate: we meet with the same peculiarity in Hylenea, Cuervea, and a few 
other cases. 
The generic name is established on rpioric serra, and pepilw divido, n the fimbriated 
serratures of the floral parts. 
PRISTIMERA, gen. nov. 
Sepala 5, subrotunda, membranacea, subviridia, glaberrima, margine fimbriato-pectinata. Petala 5, triplo 
longiora, oblonga, imo sensim angustiora, tenuissime membranacea, pe flava, glaberrima, margine 
pectinatim fimbriata, rotatim expansa,æstivatione liter valde imbricata, persistentia. Discus 
breviter depressus, tenuiter itum, undulatus, ad basin anguste expansus et subpentagonus, viri- 
dulus, minute granulosus, glaber. Stamina 3, intra discum inserta: filamenta membranacea, tenuiter 
compressa, imo sensim latiora, glabra, demum revoluta; anthere subglobosæ, cruciatim sulcatæ, sine 
connectivo medio dorsi extrorsum affixze, rima transversa bivalvatim dehiscentes, valvulis patentissime 
explanatis. Ovarium liber, depressum, trigonum, disco semiocclusum, ad angulos mox sursum 
tumefactum, 3-loculare, loculis pauciovulatis; stylus paulo omnes teres ; stigma breviter trilobum, 
b , marginibus 
lobis'transversim complanatis, NI Capsule 3, 
basalibus fere ad medium arcte coadunati 
nervosæ. Cetera ignota. 
Arbores scandentes Americe calidioris; folia opposita, oblonga, pallide viridia, flaccida, nervoso-reticulata : 
paniculæ azillares, folio breviores, irregulariter dichotome divise, sepe cum flore unico in dichotomia, 
ramis tenuissimis, glabre; flores tenuissime pedicellati, pallide flavi. 
1 + 
* 
À pálido glances, heals radiatim 
1. PRISTIMERA APICULATA, nob. : Hippocratea integrifolia, Seem. (non Rich.), Bot. Her. 
