552 PHANER0GAM1A. 



the base, subcoriaceous, dull beneath, deep green and shining above, 

 not punctate, copiously feather-veined; the slender but rather conspi- 

 cuous veins sparingly reticulated, confluent into an undulate intra- 

 marginal false vein. Cymes terminal, triehotomous, compound, 

 corymbose, many-flowered, somewhat exceeding the leaves; its divi- 

 sions slightly angled; the pedicels very short, articulated with the 

 flower. Bracts and bractlets caducous and not seen. Flower-buds 

 half an inch long, li to 2 lines wide in the middle, thence tapering 

 moderately to the base, and upwardly narrowed into a sharp and 

 slender beak, the whole between spindle-shaped and aval-shaped, acutely 

 four-angled, and below the middle marked with 4 intermediate and 

 less salient angles or nerves, very smooth: the continuous summit, 

 representing the closed limb of the calyx, separates, a little below the 

 base of the beak, by an even circumscissile line, and falls as a lid ; but 

 there is no external mark to indicate the separation before anthesis. 

 Petals 4, small, inserted on the margin of the persistent tube of the 

 calyx by a broad base, rounded, hooded, lightly cohering into a lid (in 

 the manner of Syzygium), and falling off together when the calyptra 

 of the calyx is detached. Stamens very numerous, inserted on the 

 very edge of the calyx-tube, inflexed in the manner of the family 

 before anthesis and received into the throat of the calyx, which is as 

 long as the portion adnate to the ovary: filaments filiform, distinct, 

 about 3 lines long: anthers two-celled; the cells oval, fixed by the 

 middle, longitudinally dehiscent. Style filiform, as long as the throat 

 of the calyx : stigma obtuse. Ovary two-celled., with thick and fleshy 

 walls, the dissepiment very thin, probably obliterated in the fruit. 

 Ovules 8 to 10 in each cell, somewhat ascending, anatropous, more or 

 less curved. Fruit not seen : from the texture of the calyx it is pro- 

 bably fleshy and indehiscent. 



Should this remarkable plant prove to have a fleshy fruit, as is 

 most likely, it will rank next to Calyptranthes, from which the subu- 

 late and quadrangular calyx and the operculate corolla sufficiently 

 distinguish it. If the fruit be capsular, the genus will be distin- 

 guished from Eucalyptus by the two-celled ovary, and the corolla of 

 lightly coherent or separable petals, as well as by the foliage, inflo- 

 rescence, and the form of the calyx. The name, compounded of a*}, 

 a point or edge, and xaiu-rdq, a covering, indicates the affinities and one 

 of the characters of the genus. 



