84 MR. D. OLIVER ON SYCOPSIS, A NEW GENUS OF HAMAMELIDE^. 



species of East Indian Fici. Until the calyx-tube be laid open by dissection, tbe ovarium 

 of the young fruit appears quite inferior. 



Tlie foregoing description of Sycopsis rests tipon specimens met with in the course of 

 arrangement of the late WiUiam Griffith's herbariiun. These, although very numerous, 

 appear to be all of one gathering, and, unfortunately, are almost all a little too far advanced 

 to enable me to furnish, from a sufficient number of female flowers, complete details of 

 their earlier condition. It was indeed not without a close examination of the specimens, 

 that a few glomerules bearing staminate flowers were obtained for analysis. The examples 

 being unaccompanied by any MS. of Mr. Griffith's, it is not improbable they may have been 

 obtained by some of the collectors despatched by that most zealous botanist to the Khasia 

 Hills, and that he had not had an opportunity of examining better ones himself. 



In his roughly published posthumous ' Itinerary Notes,' I do not find any description 

 referable to them. Erom the available material (which offers several peculiar points of 

 structure), assisted by a drawing of Mr. Eitch's, I believe, however, that I am warranted 

 in seeking permission to bring it before the notice of the Linnean Society, especially as 

 a further interest attaches to what may be termed the constitution, as well as to the 

 geographical distribution, of the natm-al order to which it manifestly belongs, as I shall 

 endeavour in the course of this memorandum further to indicate. 



In northern India we are already acquainted with six species, belonging to as many 

 genera, of SamamelidecB. In the consideration, therefore, of the new form, I have tried 

 to ascertain whether, after a fresh comparison of specimens, it might not be possible, by 

 the modification of generic diagnoses abeady published, to assign to some one of these 

 the Khasian plant. I feel satisfied, however, that such cannot be accomplished with a 

 proper regard either to the community of appreciable affinities which constitute and 

 characterize natural genera, or to the practice of those botanists (some the most conser- 

 vative of comprehensive genera) who have been engaged in the study of this group. I 

 consider Sycopsis to be most nearly allied to DistyUimi (Sieb. and Zucc), a second species 

 of which (Z). indicum) has been recently remarked by Mr. Bentham from Khasia. 



To this genus it approximates in the S ? tendency of the flowers, the absence of petals, 

 the structure of the stamens and their insertion in the cj flower, and the axillary shortly 

 racemose inflorescence, — differing from it most conspicuously in the adhesion of the ovary, 

 the closely surrounding calyx-tube of the ? flower reaching to the base of the styles, and 

 the number of stamens. The calyx of Distylium racemosnm is irregularly divided almost 

 quite to the base, the ovary superior, and the stamens five in number. The remaining 

 uni-ovulate apetalous Asiatic genera, Farrottia, Eustigma, and Tetratliyria, are herma- 

 phrodite, and in several respects abundantly diverse — Farrottia in its capitate precocious 

 flowers, Eustigma in the extraordinarily developed stigmata and the presence of alter- 

 nating didjonous squamse replacing the petals * as in Tetrathyria, which latter genus is 

 also further removed by its remarkable anthers, which closely resemble those of FLama- 

 melis chinensisf in the produced connectivum and double- valved loculaments. The 



* Or perhaps, with a greater probability, these may be regarded as abortive stamens. 



t In reference to this species, Robert Brown observed, in his account of Abel's Plants (Appendix to Abel's Narra- 



