193 
Original Articles. 
NOTES ON COMMELINACEAZ 
By GC. B. Cuarxe, M.A., F.L.S8. 
(Tas. 221.) 
I nave lately put through the press a Monograph of the Order 
Commelinacea, to appear in the forthcoming volume of Messrs. 
DeCandolle’s ‘ Monographies :’ the present paper contains a short 
view of the order, and details some of the considerations which 
influenced me in arranging its divisions. 
_ 1, Commelinacee are a small order of plants closely allied to the 
Lilies, but differing in their unsymmetric flowers and in their 
seeds. The sepals are three, more or less combined; the petals 
three, alternate with sepals, free or combined into a tube, distinctly 
y: : 
wers are always unsymmetric ; one sepal being entirely 
without the other two in the bud, and one petal similarly without 
the other two in the bud: when the ovary appears symmetric, or 
enclosed by the albumen, its base being applied to the embryostega, 
e small circular depresso-conicoid plate which is conspicuous 
externally on every seed in this order; see fig. 1 a, which repre- 
sents a section of a seed of Patlisota ambigua through the embryo 
(A the hilum). . 
To these two definite ordinal characters, viz., the one entirely 
P 
is wholly Liliaceous. There 1s g 
which there is any doubt whether it sho 
melinacee@ or No. 
ues. vou. 10. [suny, 1881.) 20 
