18 



THE BALANOPHORAL DIVISION. 



HOMALIACEiE. 



This family has been considered as osculant between Loasacece and Passifloracea, but to me they appear scarcely distinct from Loasacem, agreeing with them in habit and in all the parts of the 

 flower, the same similarity between the sepals and the petals occurring in both families. In Loasacece the stamens, when the same in number with the petals, are alternate with them, occupying the 

 same position as the glands in Homaliacece; — these stamens are sometimes developed as an inner and smaller row of petals which are truncate at the apex, which may be regarded as intermediate between 

 a stamen and the flattened sometimes slightly pedicellate gland of Homaiiacew, as the latter represents in all probability but one stamen, because in pentandous species, having 5 sepals and 5 petals, 

 these glands are as large as usual.* Loasacece are undoubtedly in very near affinity with Cucurbitacece for even the anther cells become elongated as if approaching the long sinuous anthers of that 

 family, and they may perhaps differ more in the position of the raphe than in any other character. The half anther of Cucurbitacece may be regarded as the first of a series of changes 

 terminating in the formation of the glands of Homaliacece. If then Homaliacece differ from Loasacece only in their more completely abortive stamens, they cannot well be regarded as very near 

 Passifloracece, but are the nearest analogue of that family in the Epigynous Division, near which they take their place in Table VII. 



Cactacece & Aristolochiace^. 



The position of the genus Ribes I believe to be between Escalloniece with which it agrees in habit and Cactacece, and although it is nearer the former, yet it very closely resembles the latter 

 in the fruit, that of an Opuntia, e.g. the Palermo Prickly Pear having a seed with a succulent testa like that of R. Grossulariaf, from which it is evident that Cactacece are very nearly allied 

 to the Epigynous Division, which is doubted by some botanists who compare them with Mesembryanthemece. The seed of this Opuntia has a small quantity of albumen, so that it differs only in 

 the curved embryo, which however is in other genera of Cactacece straight. R. Grossularia has a singular thick fungous lobulated raphe much like that of Asarum Europceum, which may 

 lend some support to the position of Aristolochiacecz as an apetalous form of the Epigynous Division, 



* I met with an instance in which one of the glands had on its surface the appearance of two imperfect anther cells, from which I should suppose that the gland itself is the thickened connective occurring in HomaliacecB. 

 f The only other instance in which I have observed this character in a remarkable degree is in Punka. 



