CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
13 
cup just mentioned, the upper moiety being covered with a thick 
fleshy gland, in shape like a very depressed cone, marked with 
twelve raised radiating strise; it is 2- celled at base, unilocular at 
its summit, with a single ovule in each incomplete cell, suspended 
from the apex of the free axile placenta. This structure is quite 
analogous to that found in many genera of the Olacacece, and 
different fi'om what exists in Mijrsinacece. I regret very much 
that I did not meet with the ovarium fui’ther advanced towards 
maturity, but this deficiency is in some degree supplied by 
another very similar plant, evidently congeneric with the above, 
and to which our attention was called nearly eight years ago bv 
Mr. Bentham (Lond. Joum. Bot. ii. 375), who says, “ No. 5380 
bis, of Gardner, from a single straggling shrub, found in a forest 
at Tejuca, fourteen miles from Rio de Janeiro, is a very singular 
plant, apparently allied to Olacacece, but unfortunately past flower 
in the specimens found. It has the habit, foliage, and inflores- 
cence of a Heisteria. My specimens bear ovaries in different 
states of development after the fall of the corolla. They are 
fleshy and pulvinate, 1 -celled inside, with one ovule pendulous 
from a lateral placenta. The calyx is persistent, very small, and 
bluntly 6-lobed, or rather with three emarginate lobes ; between 
the cal}rx and ovary are three cup-shaped truncated disks one 
within the other. The outer one, considerably larger than the 
calyx, appears to increase gradually as the ovaiy swells ; wdthin 
it, the second disk, larger than the first, grows more rapidly ; 
close around the ovary the third or innermost disk is quite short 
and concealed within the second, and does not increase at all. 
The ovary is veiy obtuse and crowned with the remains of a fili- 
form style, from the base of which may be traced six diverging 
lines.” I have examined a specimen of this plant in Sir Wm. 
Hooker’s herbarium, and can confirm the accuracy of Mr. Ben- 
tham’s observations, but with this difference, that the ovary is 
probably still more advanced, being of an oval fomi, and it is 
partly surrounded by four very distinct cup-shaped disks, that is 
to say, one more than was observed in Mr. Bentham’s specimen. 
I annex a drawing and section of the ovary and concentric 
disks thus observed, to the plate which is here given of the 
analysis of Cathedra ruhricaulis, and I have added a specific 
character of Gardner’s plant. The smaller and innermost cup 
around the base of the ovary is evidently the same disk that sup- 
ports the petals and stamens in my plant : this in the other spe- 
cies is inclosed in, and concealed by the second cup, which is 
double its length, and half the length of the ovary thus far 
grown, and is no doubt the true calyx ; the other two outer cups, 
as well as the calyx, are each supported by a short stipes, and 
are successively smaller, the outennost being extremely short 
