471 



Contributions towards a Flora of Ceylon, being descriptions 

 of several new species of Plants belonging to the Tribe 

 CYRTANDREi*:. By George Gardner, F.L.S., Superin- 

 tendent of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon. 



[Continued from page 352.] 



In the 14th Vol. of the I Linnaean Transactions,' Dr. Jack 

 established Cyrtandracea as a distinct order, referring it to 

 the neighbourhood of Bignoniacecc. About the same time Mr. 

 Don published an account of the same tribe of plants, under 

 the name of Didymocarpece, in the 7th Vol. of the ' Edin- 

 burgh Philosophical Journal.' Lindley and De Candolle adopt 

 Jack's name, following him in considering it related to Bigno- 

 niacecc ; while Blume, in his Bijdragen, considers it a section 

 of the latter order. Mr. Brown was the first to point out 

 the true affinities of Cyrtandrea? in his elaborate paper on 

 the tribe in Horsfield's ' Plantae Javanicas Rariores ;' and for 

 the benefit of those who do not possess that work, I extract 

 the following interesting observations : 



" It is somewhat remarkable, that none of these writers 

 should have reverted to the affinity of this new family to 

 Besleriacece of Richard and De Jussien, now generally 

 named Gesneriacea?. This affinity, however, did not escape 

 Dr. Von Martius, who in his elaborate account of Gesneri- 

 acece, published in 1829, considers Cyrtandracece as suffi- 

 ciently distinct from that order in the absence of albumen, 

 and in having an inverted embryo : the latter character he 

 states on the authority of Mr. Don, who, in employing the 

 term " embryo invertus," can only have intended to ex- 

 press its direction with respect to pericarpium ; such at 

 least is the real structure of those genera which he referred 

 to his Didymocarpece, and it is certain that in the relation 

 of embryo to hilum, both families entirely agree. 



" Dr. Von Martius also notices the difference in the order 

 of abortion of stamina between these two families, which is 

 no doubt generally true, but admits in each, of at least one 



