496 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
Some species are glabrous, others are covered with stellate or mal- 
pighiaceous. Many are aromatic, with their vegetative organs 
sprinkled with pellucid dots or reservoirs of essential oil. All the 
species are tropical, some are American, the rest from Asia, Africa, 
and Oceania. 
It has often been attempted to tack on the little order formed 
by the single genus Myristica to some larger group. It has, in 
fact, many affinities; first with Proteacee and Lauracee, as RoBERT 
Brown remarked, and then with Monimiacee, Anonacee, Menisper- 
macee, and Lardizabalacee. In the two former orders we find 
aromatic plants, and often dicecious flowers; in the two latter, as 
in Anonacea, the flowers are commonly trimerous. The albumen 
is often ruminate in the Menispermacee, always in Anonacee, in 
which order, moreover, the seed is often arillate, as in Myristica. 
It is very possible that some day an intermediate type may be 
found linking Myristica with some one or other of these orders, 
which shall throw more light on their affinities with it. In the 
meantime, Myristicacee is well defined by the structure of the 
androceum, the enormous development of the aril the very 
marked rumination of the albumen, the form of the small embryo, 
and above all, by the single perianth with its three thick fleshy 
axillary valvate divisions. The Lardizabalacee possessing a mona- 
delphous androceum, however, afford a transition between the 
Myristicacee with a coherent androceum and the true Berderida, 
which, like them have a single carpel; and the dehiscent, though 
fleshy, pericarp of this order is found in Molbellia, Akebia, &e. 
Whatever be the reasons that led Jussixzv’ to place the Nutmegs in 
the Zauraceg, and Apanson® to class them with Axacardiacee 
(Pistachiers),* we are compelled for the present to follow R. Brown, 
who, in 1810, established the distinct order Myristicacee.’ 
Most of the plants of this genus® are useful for their spicy aro- 
1 Myristica is said occasionally to possess two 
carpels instead of one (BL., Rumphia, i, 179). 
2 Gen. (1789), 81, 448. 
3 Fam. des Pl., ii. 345 (Comacum), 
4 RuICHENBACH (Consp., 86) even made them 
Aristolochiads. J, G. AgarpH (Theor. Syst. 
Plant., 126) considers them: “ Schizandraceis e¢ 
Viscaceis evolutione florum fere analoge, Ano- 
naceis affinitate proxime, formam earum consti- 
tuentes inferiorem, floribus diclinibus monochla- 
mydeis potissimum distinctam.” 
5 Prodr. Nov.-Holl., 86.—Env1., Gen., 829,— 
Myristicacee Horan., Prim. Lin., 61.—Lrnv1., 
a Kingd., 301 (part.).— A. DC., Prodr., 
6 Enpu., Enchirid., 419.—LInDL., op. éit., 
