314 



Notes and Enquiries on certain Plants 



has noticed distributing seeds: if any of those seeds have germinated, and 

 produced a plant, no matter whether this has subsequently died or not, there 

 is if we admit Dr. Mease's silence on the existence of a male Macliira auran- 

 tiaca in this nursery as a proof that one does not exist therein, ground of 

 assumption that M. aurantiaca has its sexes monoecious. Has one of the 

 seeds distributed germinated ? Answers to this question would be useful 

 information. Of the fruit out of which they had been taken a good portion 

 remains here dried . it abounds in nuts, most of which contain, it appears, 

 plump semblances of seeds ; of the nuts, it is intended to sow some : still, if 

 perfect, the}' are now less likely to grow than those sent to persons in Feb. 

 1834 (X. 61.) would be, if they were sown when received. 



" The Flowers [of Jllaclura, aurantiaca] are very inconspicuous, and nearly 

 green, or with a slight tinge of yellow." (Nuttall, in his letter to Lambert, 

 quoted in Gard. Mag., i. 357.) This remark is placed previous to speaking of 

 the sexes separately, in detail, from inability to discover whether the remark 

 is meant to apply to either of the sexes separately, or to both. As now 

 placed, it is supposed to be applicable to both. 



That M. aurantiaca has its sexes dioecious, there is negative evidence, ad- 

 ditional to that of the majority of witnesses on that side already cited. This 

 additional evidence will be more fitly adduced in treating of 



The male sex of the M. aurantiaca. — Nuttall, in his Genera ofN. A. Plants, 

 ii. 234., has noted " male flowers unknown," yet has arranged the species in 

 Dioe^cia Tetrandria. The date of his work is 1818. In 1824, he supplied 

 additional information on this point, in a letter to A. B. Lambert, Esq., dated 

 Liverpool, April 12. 1824. This letter has been published in the Appendix 

 to Lambert's Monograph on the Genus Pinus, vol. ii. 1828, p. 33*, 34*, and 

 copied in this Magazine L 357. So much of it as relates to the male sex, 

 and that which will apply to the question of the dioeciousness of the sexes of 

 M. aurantiaca is here introduced : — "I have herewith sent you the drawings 

 of the Madura, and have but little to add to what is already before the pub- 

 lic [in his Genera of N. A. Plants, consequently we had not to correct his 

 previous reference of it to the class Dioecia.]. I have, however, since that pub- 

 lication, seen the male flowers [represented on a diminished scale vajig. 45.^], 

 with which I had been unacquainted. They are produced in partly sessile 

 clusters, probably twelve or more together in a very short raceme, and consist 

 each of a four-parted greenish calyx, including three, but more commonly 

 four, stamens, about the length of, or a little exceeding, the calyx." Not 

 any corolla. Had these male flowers been produced upon a tree common to 

 them and to the flowers of the other sex, this author would scarcely omit to 

 mention such a fact, and correctively to his former account. 



The female sex. — Its inflorescence is a globose head of flowers (a in Jig. 

 45.), that is seated upon a short peduncle (shown in a o^ Jig. 45., and at 



