CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
17 
considered to be an impossibility, or when noticed it was always 
described as a mere basal enlargement of tbe style ; but I have 
shown that in Hxjoscyamus this anomaly really exists, and have 
since met with the same occurrence in several other instances. 
In the present case, its development is most decidedly marked, 
under the form of a prominent, rounded, fleshy disk, distinct in 
colour and texture, and exterior to the true pericarp ial mem- 
branes. It is still more prominent in Schopfia, and is found 
with a greater or less degree of development in most of the ge- 
nera of the Olacacea and Santalacea. The internal structure of 
the ovarium accords with the character pointed out by Mr. Ben- 
tham, as a prominent feature of one of his tribes of the Olacacea, 
where its central placentation divides at its base into pseudo-dis- 
sepiments, leaving the summit of the internal space always free 
and unilocular, and the ovules suspended in that free space from 
the common apex of these incomplete divisions. This structure 
is decidedly marked in Liriosma, where the ovarium is 3-locular 
at base, with one ovule in each half-cell, suspended from the in- 
ternal angle of these incomplete divisions, and here the apices of 
the ovules, rising above the points of suspension, are seen conni- 
vent in the perfectly unilocular summit of the ovarium. Of these 
ovules, as in the Olacacea and Santalaceee, only one is perfected 
in the fruit, which becomes an oval crimson-coloured drupe, con- 
taining a putamen covered by pulp and inclosing a single albu- 
minous kernel that Alls its cavity ; this exhibits externally a di- 
stinct raphe-like thread, extending from the base to the summit, 
as if the seed were suspended by a funicular support ; but it will 
be seen that this thread partakes in no degree of the character 
of a true raphe, but is merely the remains of the pseudo-disse- 
piments, extended with the growth of the seed, and forced into 
a groove formed by pressure along its sides, there being seen at 
its summit a small cruciform extremity, resulting from the 
abortive ovules, similar to the structure that forms so remarkable 
a character of the Santalacece, as first pointed out by Mr. Kobert 
Brown. This same appearance is well defined, and a true expla- 
nation of its origin is given by Mr. Bentham, in his excellent 
memoir upon the Olacacece, in the 18th volume of the ‘ Linnsean 
Transactions ’ : he had observed the same structure in the genera 
Olax, Heisteria and Schopfia, but its true nature had been mis- 
taken by other botanists. The development of the seed in Liri- 
osma is therefore identical with that of Schopfia, a genus referred 
by Mr. Brown to Santalacece, but which Mr. Bentham first 
placed among the Olacacece with great reason ; and this proves 
that the views of the former, in regard to the close affinity ex- 
isting betwen these families, are founded upon truth, and I will 
presently adduce other proofs of their validity. The stamens, 
VOL. I. D 
