• 



246 ME. A. S. HOENE— A CONTEIBUTION TO 



is inserted at a kigKer level. Eustigma, from the illustration accompanying Socman's * 

 *' Botany of the Voyage of H.M.S. ' Herald,' " is subepigynons. Tims the ovaries of the 

 above-mentioned genera fall into a complete series varying from a hypogynous to an 

 epigynous structure. Sycopsis, as originally noted by D. Oliver f , differs from all the 

 remaining Hamamelidacese. Oliver states that the ovary appears to be inferior, owing 



to the fact that' it is surrounded by a closely adpressed tuhe, which bears at its margin 

 the remaining floral whorls. He remarks that when the tube is laid open by dissection 

 the ovary is clearly superior. Heace Sycopsis forms the only other member of a second 

 series, beginning with a Disfyliiun-like form in which the perigynous ridge has become 

 specially developed and adpressed to the ovary-w^all. Very frequently, organs originally 

 adpressed become congenitally united, so that the step from the structure in Sycopsis 

 to a truly epigynous flower is not a great one. JLojvpetalum is epigynous, according to 



r 



the figures of Hamamelis chinensis given by Robert Brown in Abel's ^ ' Narrative of a 

 Journey to China ' and to the published illustration of Loropetalum chinense §. The 

 probable origin of the epigynous condition has not yet been investigated. In proceeding 

 to pass in review the structure of the ovary itself, it may be remarked that the 

 Hamamelidacese are divided by Medenzu || into two subfamilies, the Bucklandioideae 

 (ovaries with pluriovulate loculi) and the Hamamelidoideae (ovaries w^ith uniovulate 

 loculi) — a method of grouping that corresponds to the one adopted by Endlicher ^ in 

 1836. Now the ovary of Uliodoleia^ a genus of the Bucklandioideae, is specially 

 noteworthy : that of M. Championi is described as bilocular in Walpers's ** ' Annales 

 Botanices Systematica^ ' and in Curtis's ff * Botanical Magazine,' but Bentham %%, in his 

 * Elora Hongkongensis,' records that it consists of two carpels united at the base into a 

 one-celled ovary with parietal placentae. Baillon §§ states that the ovary of Jthodoleia 

 is either completely or incompletely two-celled, that it is especially incomplete below, 

 where often the placentaB do not even touch ; that in the Sumatran species 

 (B. Teysmannia) they are more or less fused higher up, but in the Chinese {H. Championi) 

 they are only in contact and maybe separated without rupture; thus they are really 

 parietal as in so many of the Saxifraginese. J. G. Boerlage |1|1, in 'Plora van Neder- 



landsch Indie,' records that the ovary is bilocular and sometimes unilocular owing to 

 the disappearance of the dissepiment, and, finally, Niedenzu^^ states that it is either 



t 



Seeman, Botany of the Voyage of H.M.S. ' Herald,' Tab. 95. 



t D. Oliver in Trans. Liun. Soc, Bot. xxiii. (1860) 83 ; Sycopsis sinensis iu Hook, Ic. 1931 (1891) 



t Robert Brown in Abel's ' Narrative of a Journey to China,' fig. 4, 



§ In Icon. Select. Horti Thenen, pi. 58. fig. 8. 



II Niedenzu in Engl. u. Prantl, Nat. Pfl., Teil iii. Abt. 2 (1891) 121. 



% S. Endlicher, Gen. PI. (1836-1840) 803. 



*♦ In Walpers'a ' Annalea Botanices Systematicae,' Tom. iii. 842 (1850-1853). 

 tt In Curtis's Bot. ilag. vi. Tab. 4509 (1850). 



it Bentham, ' Fl. Hongkongensis,' p. 131 (1861). 

 §§ H. Baillon, Histoire des Plantes, iii. 393 (1872). 



mi J. G. Boerlage, 'Flora van Nederlandseh Indie,' i. Polypetals, 454 (1890). 

 ff Niedenzu. I. c. d. 122 : fiir. 68 Tt.. 12.^k 



