452 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
sometimes compound. They are usually thick and persistent,’ rarely 
caducous, replaced in Cassytha by small scales inserted on the para- 
sitic filiform stems, which cling by suckers to the neighbouring 
plants. The flowers are sometimes in simple spikes or racemes, but 
far more frequently in cymes or ramified racemes of cymes. The 
floral receptacle varies greatly in depth; it is rarely convex, oftener 
flat or concave, very frequently hollowed into a deep sac or pouch 
bearing the perianth and androceum on its rim. . This pouch is some- 
times accrescent and persistent at the base of or around the fruit, 
which it may even entirely envelope ; sometimes it separates earlier 
or later from the pedicel, either by its base or some way up, bringing 
the perianth away with it. The indusium formed by it around 
the fruit will thus vary greatly in height, no less than in consistency ; 
it is usually dry, but sometimes fleshy as in Cassytha. The type of 
the flower is usually “; but we may find v, ¥, or * occasionally. 
The androceum consists of one or more whorls; four alternating is 
the usual number. Certain of the stamens are introrse, certain ex- 
trorse ; some have lateral glands, while others lack them entirely : 
the two or four valves by which they dehisce also varying from ex- 
trorse to introrse. Some of the stamens may be sterile; when all 
abort the flowers may be diclinous. The form of the stigmatiferous 
end of the style varies; the floral pedicel, usually remaining cylin- 
drical below the fruit, is sometimes dilated to a variable extent and 
club shaped. These are the variable characters which have served 
to distinyuish the genera and the eight series of this order. We 
proceed to give the general features on which our classification of 
these last depends.’ 
I. Crynamomea.—Flowers usually hermaphrodite; staminal whorls 
4; four stamens of the two outer fertile and introrse; of the third whorl, 
1In several genera (Cinnamomum, Mespilo- 
daphne, Ocotea, Phebe, &c.), axillary to the 
secondary ribs, especially near the base of the 
blade, we find more or less marked projections 
above, corresponding with depressions or pores, 
often lined with down, on the lower surface, 
These afford shelter to insect larvee, to whose 
agency the production of the pits has been 
ascribed, But this view appears to us untenable, 
as we have seen these depressions indicated in 
very young leaves of the Camphor-plant while 
still enveloped in the bud, before they could 
have come into contact with any animal what- 
ever, But it is not impossible that the great 
development sometimes assumed by these cavities 
(as in Ocotea bullata, feetens, &c.) may be really 
due to the presence of the animals so often 
found therein. 
? We must recall the very artificial nature of 
these divisions, especially of such series as the 
Ocotee, which we only admit to facilitate the 
study of this most natural order: There is no 
single constant differentiating character, 
