570 
APPENDIX [ Botany of Terra Australis, 
appears more probably, both from the description and figure of that author, 
to be also a species of Exocarpus. 
There is so great a resemblance between the enlarged fleshy recep- 
tacle of Exocarpus and the berry of Taxus, that some botanists have been 
led to compare these plants together in other respects. A complete coin- 
cidence in this part of their structure would not indeed prove the affinity of 
these two genera, any more than it does that of Exocarpus to Anacardium 
or Semecarpus, with which also it has been compared ; and to determine 
their agreement even in this respect it is necessary to understand the origin 
of the berry of Taxus, of which very different accounts have been given. 
According to Lamarck* it consists of the enlarged ovarium itself, perfor- 
ated by the seed soon after impregnation ; while Mirbell’ considers it as 
formed of the scales of the female amentum, immediately surrounding the 
organ, named by him cupula ; and considered as containing the pistillum, 
but which most other authors have regarded as the pistillum itself. My 
observations differ from both these accounts, for on examining the female 
fructification of Taxus before impregnation I find the rudiments of the fu- 
ture berry, consisting at that period of a narrow fleshy ring, surrounding 
the base only of the cupula of Mirbel, and very similar to the annular hy- 
pogynous nectarium of many flowers. If this cupula therefore were the 
pistillum itself, the berry of Taxus would have an origin analogous to that 
of Balanites , % as it has been very lately described by Mirbel ; and on the 
other hand, if that author’s view of the female fructification of Taxus, and 
Conifer® generally, be adopted, it might then to a certain degree be com- 
pared with the external cupula of Dacrydium, which will be more particu- 
larly noticed hereafter; but from this it would still be very distinct both in 
its texture and in its not inclosing, in the early stage the cupula, on neither 
supposition, however, does its origin agree with that of the berry of Exo- 
carpus, which in some respects more nearly resembles the fleshy receptacle 
of Podocarpus. 
I have annexed Olax to Santalaceae,^ not however considering it as 
absolutely belonging to the same family, but as agreeing with it in some 
* Encyclop. botan. 3 • p. 228. + JVouv. bulletin des scien. 3. p. 73. 
t Delile in mem. sur I’Egypte, 3. p. 3 26. Xiaienia ffigyptiaca Linn. 
§ Prodr. Jl. nov. hall, 36 7- 
