Geology and Natural History. 63 
student. More to the purpose would have been some account = 
the methods of study adopted by modern investigators who hav 
— given a new and deep interest tomycology. Useful as this 
volume must be, and full as it is of interesting information about 
~ shee @ it does not altogether supply the long-felt want of an 
book. 
elementary text- G. 
13, stivation in Asimina.—The estivation was formerly 
thought to be valvate in all py es In the Genera Am. Bor. 
Or. Illustrata, vol. i, 1848, it is mentioned that the petals of each 
set are more or less imbricated in Asiminu, as also in some other 
genera. The petals enlarge so much before and during expansion 
that the proper eestivation needs to be determined in young flower- 
buds. A subsequent examination of these, in A. triloba, showed 
that there was hardly any overlapping in an early state. Accord- 
ingly, in the later editions of my Manual, no exception to the 
ordinal character, “valvate in the bud,” i s alluded to. In the 
Genera Plantarum, Bentham and Hooker distingaics their two 
the appearance of the blossoms. The sepals appear to be truly 
valvate. e outer petals are eee. imbricated, their tips 
well overlapping in the order 1, 2, 3, in the early bud, and 
h 
Ndged This portion is iroqutanted by thrips, or such-like Insects, 
as also is the mass of stamens as soon as the anthers open. 
flowers are proterogynous, the stigmas being early in good condi- 
tion, the anthers discharging pollen only when nearly ready to 
shrivel and fall. 
or less as the bud swells. exterior petals, a little distant at "6 
their , very slightly overlap as they meet at the 
while just below the margins become a little revolute. The oe 
- less obscurely, yet very slightly, overla t the very tips. 
As the deine in ae cee ightly as ap imbricated posi- 
tion which becomes SS in the cate petals. 
I conclude that the tribe Unonew cannot be distinguished from 
the Uvariew, at least upon the characters a assigned, and that the 
one kind of zstivation passes by gradations into the other. 
