CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
Aptandra. 
The last collection of Mr. Spruce from the neighbourhood of 
Obidos, on the river Amazon, contains among many very inter- 
esting plants one of very singular and anomalous strueture. It 
is arborescent, with slender, smooth branchlets and somewhat 
copious foliage, its leaves being alternate, smooth and petioled, 
but without stipules. Its inflorescence is axillary, in long slender 
branching panicles, the flowers numerous and minute, each being 
supported upon a long fihform ebracteated pedicel. The calyx 
is a short fleshy cup, quite free, with four short teeth, and hence 
almost quadrate. The corolla consists of four fleshy, linear pe- 
tals many times longer than the calyx, with their apex enlarged 
by a concave pointed expansion, valvate in aestivation, forming in 
bud a clavate head, surmounting a terete cylinder ; this at fii’st 
opens hke four reflexed valves, showing the anthers, but they 
gradually separate to the base, becoming coiled and revolute, 
like the corolla of a Hamamelis or a Chionanthus. The stamens 
consist of a thick, fleshy, cylindrical tube, nearly the length of 
the corolla, which has a clavate globular head, exhibiting the 
anthers, arranged externally upon this, almost solid, fleshy, 
globular connective; this has a very naiTow orifice, and is 
perforated down the middle for the style and stigma, which are 
closely embraced by it. The anther-cells, eight in number, and 
equal in size, are imbedded upon the external face of this con- 
nective, forming an annular ring, each cell opening extrorsely, by 
the separation of its external membranaceous valve, which re- 
