CONTRIBUTIOXS TO BOTAXY. 
29 
ovarium, refer it, without doubt, to Olacacem. The genus lodina, 
at first sight, offers a close resemblance to Cervantesia, which 
has in like manner five large petaloid scales, alternating with as 
many fertile stamens, and all originating in one common whorl, 
from the margin of a cupuliform disk ; but in this genus the 
disk is not free, as in lodina, but is entirely adnate with the tube 
of the floral envelope, so that when the fruit ripens, the drupe 
exhibits on its sides the persistent lobes of the corolla, and the 
petaloid stamens ; but as the principal floral envelope must be 
regarded as a perigonium, having no calyx at its base, and as 
the disk is adnate with this perigonium, this genus must be 
referred to Santalacece, while lodina and Agonandra must belong 
to Olacacea;. There is one very unusual point of structure in 
Cervantesia, which appears to me without example ; the floral 
envelope, dee])ly cleft above into five equal segments, is adnate 
to the disk, a little below the level of its free margin, but at this 
point it descends again below the same line of attachment, in 
the form of five other reverse segments, equal in size and con- 
tinuous with the upper ones, and quite free from the disk and 
pedicel, which they enclose, so that it appears to consist of five 
elliptical segments, j)ointcd and free, both above and below, and 
confluent only with each other and with the margin of the 
disk by a narrow transverse zone running across their middle : 
these inferior free processes must be spurlike extensions of the 
perigonium. 
We have still another striking instance of the consimilitude in 
the external characters of the Olacacece and Aquifoliacece, which 
has led to a confusion of reference, in an opposite direction ; this 
occurs in the genus Bursinopetalum of Wight, who assigned it 
to the former family, but which appears to me clearly belonging 
to the latter, as it agrees with it in the imbricate sestivation of 
its corolla ; the petals, though distinct, and somewhat valvatc at 
base, are decidedly imbricated for at least two-thirds of their 
length, two alternate petals being exterior to the others, and 
their margins overlapping to a considerable extent ; they have 
the same prominent internal keel, and the apex is deeply inflected 
by long processes, which are torsively complicated together, 
as in Vil/aresia ; the ovarium (probably from a similar cause) 
is unilocular, with an ovule (or two?) suspended on one side 
from near the summit of the cell ; so far all accords with the 
last-mentioned genus, but it differs in having its ovarium half 
immersed in the fleshy torus, which however occurs sometimes 
in Ilex. Although the ovarium is at first almost su])crior, it 
subsequently becomes inferior by the growth of the fleshy torus, 
or disk, and it is the lower portion only that acquires increment, 
for the fruit ultimately is invested by the enlarged calyx, now 
