﻿MR. J. MIERS ON THE LECYTHIDACE^. 173 



has or tlie character of its inflorence; it prohahly helongs to one of 15 species^ which he 



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was there obliged to pass by, as they were far too high and quite out of his reach. The 

 flower expanded is IJ in. in diameter, has 6 subequal oval fleshy sepals, dorsally rugu- 

 lose, with membranaceous denticulate margins ; 6 petals, six times as long as the sepals, 

 somewhat unequal in size, oblong, membranaceous, fixed by their distinct claws between 

 the disk and the base of the androphorum ; the latter is comparatively small, with a 

 broad deep cup-shaped ring at the base, covered inside by 5 series of crowdecl short 

 appendages, somewhat 4i-grooved and truncated at their summits, each bearing there 

 a short slender filament that supports a 2-celled anther ; similar staminiferous appendages 

 are extended over a short and rather broad incurving ligula (an expansion of the basal 

 ring), which widens into a concave hood inverted over the centre ; this hood is cor- 

 rugated outside, and is formed into a hollow purse-shaped cavity, truncated at its mouth, 

 and on the middle of its outer edge it is expanded into a tongue-shaped strap, which is 

 again incurved beneath the sacciform hood : there are no appendages upon any part of 

 the hood, though they abound on the ligula ; the inside of the sack is marked by many 

 parallel prominent nerves or coloured ridges, which do not quite reach the margin of the 

 mouth, but terminate in as many spots : the ovary is inferior, 3-celled, mth many small 

 ovules in each cell, fixed to a nearly basal placenta in the axis ; the vertex is somewhat 

 concave within the disk, radiately striated, having in the centre a curving terete style, 

 longer than the sepals, as in LecytUsy and terminated by a small whitish stigma of 

 3 short erect lobes. 



This review shows that notwithstanding the great diversity of structure in the 

 Lecythidacece, there is always a sufficient degree of uniformity in its general characters to 

 maintain them as a distinct natural order in the fullest sense of that term. Tlicy consist 

 of trees of immense growth, rarely of smaller size, with leaves always alternate, gene- 

 rally quite or obsoletely serrated, without pellucid dots ; the flowers, often of great size, 

 are in axillary or terminal racemes or panicles ; the adnate calyx has generally 6 free 

 sepals : the petals, equal to them in number, are large, oblong, very imbricated, with 

 their claws insinuated beneath the androphorum, and agglutinated with it upon the 

 annular epigynous disk : all have a remarkable androphorum, mostly of great size, which 

 is petaloid under the modifications previously described : the very numerous and very 

 small stamens have short slender filaments, with 2 minute anther-cells, never fixed 

 mmediately upon the disk, but always borne upon much longer distinct appendages, 

 originating upon the basal ring of the androphorum or upon its expanded head ; these 

 appendages are clavate in the former position, arc much longer, subulately linear, 

 imbricatively echinate, and very frequently barren in the latter : the ovary, generally 

 quite inferior, more rarely semisuperior, has 2 to 6 cells, with ovules (not very nume- 



ither suspended by funicles from the axis, or erect and sessile at the base of the 

 eeUs ; the style is not much longer than the sepals, terete, slightly incur^-ed,^ or short 

 and broadly conical, with a minute stigma. The fruit is always a woody pyxidium, with 

 opercular dehiscence under difi'erent modifications, and is quite peculiar : the seeds arc 



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ronsi o 



' Kew Joxirn. iv. p. 283. 



VOL. XXX. 



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