8 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
sideration, vve may draw the legitimate inference, that if, from its 
indubitably peculiar characters, it be considered as the type of a 
yet unknown group of plants {Aptandraceae), it may probably 
tind its station, in the arrangement of Endlicher, following the 
Berberidacea, taking its rank among that portion of the polype- 
talous Thalamijlorce, with the segments of the corolla often in 
more than one series, and with an ovarium composed of two or 
more united carpels, and with one or few ovules attached to a 
placenta of somewhat gynophorous origin. It would thus stand at 
no great distance from the Menispermacea, which it resembles in 
its synantherous stamens with extrorse anthers and scale-hke 
inner row of petals ; not very far from the Anonacea, because of 
their 2-seried petals, with valvate aestivation and extrorse stamens ; 
and near the Berberidacece, on account of their corolla in two 
series, of the valve-like dehiscence of their anthers, which are 
also extrorse, their stipitate ovarium, entire style and stigma, and 
the structure of the seed and embryo. 
In this same projected division, it appears to me, some other 
groups will before long find their place, and will thus mark a 
better gradation, and form a more complete link between the 
Poly earpiece of Endlicher and those syncarpous orders with simple 
series of floral envelopes, which now exhibit too wide a space of 
transition between them. These will probably form a distinct 
class {CionospermcB from the development of the ovules on a cen- 
tral and more or less columnar placenta) intermediate between 
the Polyearpiece and Bheeades, and into it will enter more natu- 
rally the Berberidaeece, which in truth are never polycarpic, for 
they have generally a solitary unilocular ovarium, with the pla- 
centae either central or by partial suppression, adhering parictally 
to the sides of the cell. We may consider this alliance as pre- 
senting a development of one or more carpeUary leaves, with the 
sterile margins often somewhat partially introflexed, so as to 
form spurious dissepiments, and the ovuliferous placentae ema- 
nating from theii’ basal or hypothetically petiolar supports, and 
united in a basal or columnar trophosperm. In this respect, it 
will be seen to be an intermediate stage of development between 
the Polyearpiece and the Bheeades, in which last class the mar- 
gins of the carpellary leaves are placentiferous, and there simply 
united together, and being elevated on their petiolar supports, 
thus form a distinct gynophorus : they offer some analogy with 
the Gynobasic classes, which at the same time exhibit a gyno- 
phorous origin, with the axile union 6f the introflexed placentary 
margins of the carpels. In the class I have here suggested, the 
Olaeaeece, Styraeece, Ebenaeece, Myrsinaeece, &c. may probably 
find a better position than the stations assigned to them in most 
of the modern systems of arrangement, and I shall take an early 
