R U T A C E M. 349 



a small and short, somewhat eight-lobed, gynobasic disk, closely con- 

 nivent, as if forming a four-lobed compound ovary, but distinct; their 

 styles united into one, but at length separable ? Stigma four-lobed. 

 The styles are either longer or shorter than the ovary, even in dif- 

 ferent flowers of the same cyme. Ovules geminate from near the 

 base of the cell, ascending, the micropyle superior. Ovary of the 

 male flowers four-lobed, crowned with a small sessile stigma, and con- 

 taining only abortive ovules. Fruit not seen. 



We have only imperfect and scanty materials for characterizing 

 this plant, the genus of which must for the present remain uncertain. 

 Apparently it differs from Melicope only in the valvate aestivation of 

 the corolla and the deciduous calyx, and from Acronycliia in the 

 uncombined ovaries. Since it is nearly in these same particulars that 

 Pelea is distinguished from these two genera, the plant may most 

 naturally be referred to the present genus, with which it pretty well 

 accords in habit. 



Plate 34, B. — Pelea? lucida. Fig. 1. Branch of the sterile plant. 

 2. Portion of a branch of the fertile plant. 3. Flower-bud and pedi- 

 cel of the sterile plant. 4. Expanded flower of the same. 5. Calyx 

 and abortive pistil of the same. 6. Flower-bud, with the lobes of the 

 calyx and petals removed. 7. Stamens of the same. 8. A fertile 

 flower (from fig. 2). 9. Vertical section of the same. 10. The pistil 

 shortly after anthesis ; the ovaries connected only by their common 

 style. — The details variously magnified. 



16. MELICOPE, Font. 



The aestivation of the corolla appears not to have been determined 

 either in Melicope ternata or M. simplex. Some flower-buds of the two 

 species, kindly communicated by Sir William Hooker for the purpose, 

 enable me to state that the cestivation is imbricative. In M. ternata 

 the thin edges of the petals slightly but distinctly overlap : in M. 

 simplex they are more strongly imbricated. There are some indica- 

 tions that the flowers are polygamous, rather than truly hermaphro- 

 dite. The testa of the seed is not "coriaceous," but crustaceous; and 

 the radicle of the embryo is superior, as in all the allied genera. 



