494 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. ~ 
are thick and hard; they enclose a deeply ruminated albumen 
(fig. 306), containing the embryo in a little cavity near the micro- 
pyle. The radicle is inferior, short and conical; the cotyledons are 
diverging and undulate. J. frayrans is a tree from the Moluccas, 
with all its parts aromatic. The leaves are alternate simple entire 
petiolate exstipulate. Its flowers are in false racemes,’ few-flowered, 
axillary or supra-axillary and pedunculate. Hach pedicel has a 
caducous bract at its base, and bears at a variable height, usually 
close under the flower, another caducous bract alternating with the 
two anterior perianth-leaves. 
Myristica fragrans. 
Fra. 305. 
Seed. 
Fie. 304. 
Female flower, diagram. 
Fig. 306. 
Longitudinal section of seed. 
The other members of the section Humyristica have all the same 
general organization, with from eight to thirty anthers. In Virola, 
which was formerly made a distinct genus, there are usually only as 
many stamens as there are perianth-leaves, with which they alter- 
nate. This too is the case with the section Ofoda ;* but the anthers 
_Bot., 380), hold the view diametrically opposed 
to this, saying that they “have preferred to 
retain the name of aril for this,” because, “ in 
the examination of two ovules, we thought we 
were able to remark that this organ rises more 
one that comes near the truth. It is an aril 
produced by both hilum and micropyle. 
1 The female inflorescences of IZ. fragrans are 
rather comparable to cymes. In the 3-flowered 
ones, for instance, we may observe this. One 
from the base of the ovule than from the 
exostome, as asserted by A. DE CANDOLLE and 
Puancnon.” However, we had shown more 
than three years before that the aril is a 
thickening which, arising on the right and the 
left of the base of the ovule, reaches horizontally 
back to the hilum, and gradually extends on 
either side to the exostome; so that the bypo- 
thesis of J. Hooxer & THomson (FV. Ind., i. 
154), according to which the mace is of mixed 
nature—both arillode and true aril—is the only 
flower is central, older, and on a longer pedicel 
than the others. Where its pedicel separates 
from the common peduncle of the inflorescence 
there are two bracts, situated near one another 
and ,on the same side; each -of these has a 
younger pedicellate flower in its axil. 
2 AUBL., Guian.. 904, t. 345.— A. DC., 
Prodr., 194 (Myristice, sect. iii.).—Sebophora 
Necx., Elem., 907. 
SA. DC., in Ann. Sc. Nat., sér. 4, iv. 830; 
Prodr., 198 (sect. v.). 
