1854.] Some account of the Botanical Collection. 630 



loose papers in the Botanic Gardens. There are at the Botanic 

 Gardens some other MS. corrections which might have been advan- 

 tageously inserted in the reprint of his writings, undertaken by Sir 

 "W". Hooker at the suggestion, I believe, of Dr. Wallich.* 



The disposition of the placentae and ovula in this genus is curious. 

 The former, or perhaps rather their ovuliferous portions, are confined 

 to the middle of the inner angle of each cell, from which they are 

 produced outwards into the middle. Each bears on its apex two 

 ovula, the upper one of which is erect, the under pendulous ; the 

 raphe of both being on that side of the ovulum next the outer wall 

 of the cell. The result, when both ovula are matured, is, that two 

 anatropous seeds of which one is erect and one pendulous, have the 

 radicles of their embryos pointing exactly towards one another. 



CANTON COLLECTION, 



This is entirely tropical, and the only peculiar forms that appear 

 to me to exist in it are Nauclea Adina, Strophanthus dichotomus, 

 and Siphonostegia sinensis. For Bssckia frutescens is found on Mount 

 Ophir, with some other Australasian or Polynesian forms, and Myr- 

 tus tomentosa is to be found in abundance in the Straits of Malacca. 

 But Siphonostegia, the specimens of which present additional caly- 

 cine lobes, is the only local or characteristic form, for Nauclea is not 

 only a common Indian genus, but there is, I believe, a Khasiya form 

 that approaches N. Adina itself, and Strophanthus exists on the N. 

 E. frontier of Bengal, and about Malacca, where it is represented 

 by a very fine species with large horn-like follicles. All the remain- 

 ing genera, and probably almost all the species, may be met with 

 either on the Tenasserim Coast or on the Eastern frontier of Bengal. 



CHUSAN COLLECTION. 



The list of this collection given at the commencement is not limit- 

 ed to plants actually existing in the collection, but includes a few 

 others, either contained in Dr. Cantor's sketches, or in his con- 

 spectus of his collections.f I have attached an asterisk to those 



* Are there any other MSS. of Jack in existence? I find references in Dr. 

 Wallich's hand-writing to a MS. description of Hoya grandiflora, in an imperfect 

 copy of Carey's edition of Roxburgh's Flora Indica. 



t Calc. Journ. Nat. Hist. No, V. 



4 p 



