32 NATUBAL EISTORY OF PLANTS. 



i. Miconiem. — Fruit coriaceous, generally indehiscent. Seeds ovoid 

 or pyramidal, rarely curved. Stamens nearly equal, with variable 

 anterior, rarely exterior appendages. (New world.) 



j. Merianece. — Fruit capsular. Seeds straight, elongate or cunei- 

 form, sometimes winged. Stamens with connective bare, little or not 

 at all prolonged below the cells, sometimes furnished with a thick 

 dorsal appendage. (New world.) 



II. AsTEONiEiE.' — Flowers with inferior (" adherent ") 2-oo -celled- 

 ovary. Placenta multiovulate, inserted in internal angle or near the 

 base, often elongate, ascending, or rising more or less on the dorsal 

 coat of the cells. Stamens with short anthers, ordinarily with a short 

 and thick dorsal basilar spur. Fruit fleshy or coriaceous. Seeds 

 short, straight, often obcuneiform. — 3 genera. 



III. Blakbe^.^ — Flowers with inferior ("adherent") ovary, some- 

 times with 2-4 bracts forming an involucre. Ovarian cells l-oo , 

 multiovulate or with ovules definite in number (1-12), ascending, 

 with micropyle exterior and inferior. Anthers with short thick dorsal 

 basilar spur, dehiscing by elongate or short (poriform) clefts. Seeds 

 with fleshy embryo, plano-convex or subfoliaceous cotyledons. Leaves 

 penninerved or 3-5-plinerved, with secondary nervures often but 

 faintly visible. — 5 genera. 



Thus constituted, this family approaches the Myrtacem by the 

 Blakeem and Astroniece, the Lythrariacece by the genera with free ovary, 

 or by those which, as Fostidia and Sonneratia, have the ovary partly 

 or wholly adherent. The Melastomacece are not odorous and punctuated 

 like the Myrtacem, from which they differ, as from the Lythrariacece, 

 by the nervation of their leaves and the peculiar organization of their 

 stamens. The Onagrariacece are neighbours of the Melastomacece by 

 reason of their close analogies with the Lythrariacece and Myrtacece. 



1 Astroniece 'Ha.vti. — Tm. Melastom. 151, Trih. Memecylem DO. Prodr. iii. 5, Ord. 67. — Endl. 

 12.— B. H. Gen. 727, Sutord. II. Gen. 1222.— Memecylaeece Lindl. Veg. Kwgd. 



2 B. H. Qen. 727, Trib. {Melastomearum) 9. — 731. —Mouririacem GtArdn. Hook. Journ. ii. 23. 

 Pyxidanthe<e Tbi. Melast. 148, Trib. 11. — 



