374 MR. J. MIERS ON THE HIPPOCRATEACEA OF SOUTH AMERICA. 
6. ANTHODON. 
The right position of this genus in the arrangement of the family, as here adopted, 
must remain doubtful until further evidence can be obtained. All the five preceding 
genera exhibit the important feature of the atrophy of the axis of the ovary, at the 
same time that its cells expand, often to a gigantic size, into distinct capsules: on the 
other hand, it will be seen that in all the succeeding genera the axis of the ovary is pro- 
longed equally and simultaneously with the expansion of its cells, which are resolved 
into a multilocular drupe, also often of excessive size. In our want of knowledge to 
which of these two groups this genus belongs, it is here placed in an intermediate posi- 
tion between them, so that it may be annexed to the one or the other on a better 
aequaintance with its structure. 
It is now 73 years since Anthodon was established by the authors of the * Flora Peru- 
viana,' under the details and figures then given, since which time nothing whatever has 
been known concerning it; and were it not that some of the typical plants then collected 
by Pavon are still in existence, we should have been in complete darkness on the subject. 
Anthodon was so named by Ruiz and Pavon, because its petals are dentated on the 
margin, a character which is common to a great many genera of this family. Schreber 
made it a section of his genus Zonsella. In 1821, Kunth, who had not seen the typical 
plant, confounded it with another one from the Rio Orinoco, which he considered to be 
identically the same species, and it was accordingly so figured and described* ; but, from his 
account, it appears to me to belong to the genus Prionostemma, as 1 have shown (ante, 
page 359). Anthodon was adopted in 1824 by De Candolle, who, in his ‘Prodromus, 
cites the Peruvian species, adding to it eight others from Brazil t, communicated by Von 
Martius, none of which belong to it. In 1852 Mr. Bentham thought it probable that 
the Anthodon decussatum, R. & P., would prove to be a species of Hippocratea 1: he then 
described, however, under Anthodon, two species from the Amazonas, one belonging to 
-Raddia, the other, as he suspected, referrible to a new genus, which I have here de- 
scribed under Amphizoma. The characters of Anthodon, as compared with other strue- 
tures, were then indeed so little known, and so ill defined, that in 1862, in company with 
some others, it became submerged in Salacia by Messrs. Bentham and Hooker $. Al- 
though its fruit is unknown, the genus is good, and well supported by valid characters, 
as the following diagnosis will show. 
ANTHODON, R. & P. 
Sepala 5, parva, semiorbicularia, in medio crassiuscula et extus rugulosa, margine membranacea et pec- 
tinato-fimbriata. Petala 5, alterna, 6-plo longiora, oblonga, a medio subcuneatim angustiora, apice 
subobtusa, crassiuscula, glaberrima, extus granulatim rugulosa, ad marginem tenuiorem dentibus 
crebris cuspidatis fimbriata, æstivatione quincuncialiter subimbricata, diseum circumcirca rotatim 
expansa, demum revoluta. Discus brevis, tubularis aut subpoculiformis, carnosulus, margine cre- 
berrime crenulatus. Stamina 3, intra discum inserta ; filamenta in «estivatione disco occulta, demum 
petális æquilonga, carnosula, sublinearia, imo vix latiora, divergenti-erecta: anthere transversim 
reniformi-globosze, cruciatim sulcatæ, rugulosæ, crassiusculæ, super connectivum carnosum cuneatum 
* Nov. Gen. et Sp. v. 140, tab. 443. + Prodr. i. 569. 
i Hook. Kew Journ. iv. p. 9. $ Gen. PL i. p. 370. 
