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MR. J. MIERS ON THE LECYTHIDACE^. 167 



provided with a velarium, no pulp, few erect sessile seeds (not costate, nor 

 suspended by large fleshy funicles), different seminal integuments, an embryo of another 

 shape and structure, not white and edible, but extremely bitter, offer characters so 

 diametrically opposed to Lecythis, that it is difficult to fancy how Eschweilera could 

 ever have been confounded with it. 



Jugastrum (Plate XXXV. a) is a genus proposed for a group of plants ^ of which few 

 species are yet known ; they form trees, sometimes 100 feet high, with trunks 3 to 6 feet 

 in diameter, while others do not exceed 10 or 20 feet in height ; and they have the 

 general habit and inflorescence of Lecythis : the flower has 6 thick, unequal sepals, 6 

 obovate, subequal petals, and an androphorum with a somewhat broad basal ring, 

 densely covered with short staminiferous appendages extending halfway up the ligula, 

 the remainder of which is bare ; the hood is very convex, saddle-shaped, inverted, lacinu- 

 lated along its margin, and densely echinated within by shortish, strap-shaped, ascend- 

 ing appendages, most of which, especially at the upper extremity, bear stamens, like 

 those of the basal ring ; the ovary is more than semisuperior, its vertex being high, 

 dome-shaped, and terminated by a short conical style ; it is 2-celled, with very numerous 

 ovules in several series, sessile in the bottom of the cells. The pyxidium resembles in 

 size that of some species of Eschiveilera ; but it has a much thinner pericarp ; it is sub- 

 globose or turbinate, with two parallel zonal cinctures, the persistent sepals, unchanged 

 in form, often remaining on the lower zone ; the upper or opercular zone is generally of 

 equal diameter, leaving the interzonal band often very narrow and erect ; the operculum, 

 obtusely umbonated, is thin in substance, hollow and conchoid inside, showing within 

 its margin a descending velarium, as in Chytroma and Esclmellera ; though normally 

 2-celled, it becomes unilocular by the evanescence of its membranous dissepiment, the 

 vestiges of which can only be seen on the wall of the pericarp and operculum ; conse- 

 quently there is no central column : the pericarp is coriaceous, thinner than a shilling, 

 and contains from 10 to 20 seeds, closely packed, filling the entire space when fresh ; but 

 they shrink considerably in drying, in which state only have I been able to examine 

 them ; they are subcylindrical, acutely 4-angular at the sides, tapering towards the basal 

 hilum, convex at the summit by pressure against the operculum, erect, affixed in 3 series 

 to the bottom of the cell, where the cicatrices at their hilar points of attachment con- 



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stantly remain : in some species the seeds are fewer, much broader, much compressed, 

 and convex on the dorsal face ; the testa, acutely angular, is coriaceous, about the thick- 

 ness of a thin card, is smooth, opaque, and brownish outside, coarsely granulated inside 

 by pressure against the nucleus ; and in its substance is found a dense network of white 

 spiral vessels: in drying, the nucleus contracts considerably within the testa, but 

 preserves the same shape, is of a saffron-colour, deeply corrugated all over : the inner 

 integument is finely membranaceous, adhering to the testa, and presenting a 

 surface ; the nucleus, when cut through, appears homogeneous in texture, of a pale 

 brown colour, spotted all over with minute dark oil-cells : if a section be made longi- 

 tudmally through the ventral ande, we see a continuous line near the periphery, indi- 



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