288 PHANEROGAMIA. 



acuminate, contracted at the base into a short petiole (of 3 or 4 lines in 

 length), chartaceous in texture, dull, veiny, from 2 to 3 J inches long: 

 they are scattered on vigorous shoots, and more or less fascicled on 

 short spurs. Cymes many-flowered, axillary or sometimes terminal, 

 loose, much shorter than the leaves, either nearly sessile, or on a 

 common peduncle which does not exceed the petiole. Pedicels capil- 

 lary, 3 to 5 lines long. Flowers polygamous ; the expanded corolla 

 3 lines in diameter. Calyx minute, deeply five-cleft; the lobes 

 greenish-white, obtuse and roundish, ciliate-} ringed with bristly hairs. 

 Petals obovate or spatulate-oblong, very minutely denticulate, spreading 

 sessile by a thickish base, white, tardily deciduous. Stamens 5 ; in 

 the sterile flowers with the subulate filaments as long as the petals, 

 their cordate anthers obtuse (or sometimes mucronate) : in the fertile 

 flowers much shorter, and with smaller and often imperfect anthers. 

 There are no "capilli between the stamens, in pairs before the petals," 

 as is said by Forster to be the case in his Celastrus crenatus. Disk 

 fleshy, orbicular, almost entire, perigynous, in the early state covering 

 the ovary and adherent to it. Ovary in the sterile flowers effete, but 

 usually three-celled and ovuliferous, tipped with a short style and a 

 three-lobed stigma; in the fertile flowers ovoid, three-celled, and with 

 3 slender styles which are more or less united below the middle, their 

 diverging summits stigmatose on their inner face. Ovules 2 in each 

 cell, erect from the base, anatropous, sessile, without any trace of a 

 cupule or arillus. Fruit a nearly globose capside, 3 lines in diameter, 

 not lobed nor triquetrous, three-celled, three-valved, three-seeded: 

 the valves coriaceous, bearing the dissepiment on the middle ; to the 

 base of which the seed is attached. Seed oval or oblong, its base cupu- 

 late with a short and irregular, caruncle-like, fleshy arillus, which is 

 entirely glabrous: testa coriaceous, with a thin external pellicle. 

 Embryo nearly the length of the fleshy albumen : cotyledons oval, 

 flat : radicle short, inferior. 



This species is obviously related to Catha crenata, the Celastrus 

 crenatus of Forster, from the Marquesas (and Society?) Islands, with 

 the description of which, reproduced by Guillemin (Zeph. Tait. p. 69) 

 from Forster's manuscript, I have endeavoured to contrast it. Our 

 plant has smaller and less coriaceous leaves, smaller pods, and a red- 

 dish and glabrous (not woolly and white) cup-shaped arillus to the 

 oblong seed ; the flowers are very much smaller than those of Primus 



