Plants of the order Santalacee. 349 
teresting collection made around ‘Macon, Georgia, by Professor 
J. Darby, the author of a good elementary treatise on “ South- 
ern Botany,” and the former principal of a seminary of high 
character at that place, but who has recently accepted the 
mathematical chair in Williams College; Massachusetts. The 
unticketed specimen is finely in blossom, but, much to my 
disappointment, the flowers all proved to be staminate. Still 
the materials in my possession, imperfect as they are, suffice to 
show that the shrub in question belongs to the small and highly 
interesting order of Santalacea, and that it is nearly allied to 
the genus Comandra of Nuttall. With my present informa- 
tion, I know of no other genus with which it may be immedi- 
ately compared. 
In inflorescence it agrees with Comandra, except that the 
peduncles are axillary, and the short pedicels strictly umbellate. 
The calyx, disk, and stamens are quite similar, and, above all, 
the anthers are connected with the lobes of the perigonium by 
the same singular tufts of cobwebby hairs. The observed 
Points of difference are, first, that this new plant is apparently 
diecious. The staminate flowers do not exhibit the slightest 
trace of a gynzecium. The turbinate calyx-tube is accordingly 
hollow to the very base, and is lined with the thin disk through- 
out. In the second place, the present plant isa shrub, attain- 
ing the height of several feet, if I correctly remember Mr. Curtis’s 
Verbal account, and presenting somewhat the aspect of a Vi- 
burnum ; while the two species of Comandra are low herbs, 
With at most a suffratescent base. And thirdly, what is of 
More importance, the leaves, which are alternate in Comandra, 
ate uniformly opposite in our plant. They may perhaps be 
Compared with those of Nemopanthes, Raf. (Ilex Canadensis, 
Michz.), except that they are mostly acute at both ends. 
applying to Professor Darby for further information, I 
learn that this shrub has been to him an object of special in- 
terest for the last ten years, although he has never found it 
except upon one spot, only a few rods square, where it is 
| t forming bushy shrubs, two or three feet in height. 
