CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
77 
contains a single seed, resembling the two preceding species in 
structure and attachment ; but the external cord is adherent, and 
cannot be detached from it without rupture. I have found, how- 
ever, one instance in which the putamen is distinctly 2-celled, 
the cells being separated by a thin dissepiment, and each filled 
by a single seed, suspended in the usual manner from the 
summit of a thick internal cord, which originating in the base, 
proceeds close to the walls of the putamen, attached to one side 
of the dissepiment, reaches the summit of the cells, where it 
throws out two strophiolar processes, one into each cavity, from 
which the seeds are respectively suspended : it need hardly be 
suggested that the cord in question must be the elongated relic 
of the abortive third cell. This is an instructive fact, showing 
how necessary it is to trace the growth of seeds through all their 
successive stages from their origin, in order to understand their 
true structure and development. The circumstances observed 
in Pennantia Cunninghami, of possessing three distinct styles and 
cells in the fertile ovarium (a character which, for aught we know 
to the contrary, may be common to all the species), and of having 
also a drupe containing an oval coriaceous putamen, might in- 
duce some botanists to place this species in a genus distinct from 
the other hard-nutted species, but it appears to me that such 
differences are not sufficient to authorize their generic separa- 
tion ; should it be thought otherwise, it might bear the name of 
the section in which it is here placed. The following generic 
character is almost wholly based upon my own observations. 
Pennantia, Porst. — Flores polygamo-dioici. Calyx parvus, 
crasso-discoideus, obsolete 5-dentatus, immutatus et persistens. 
Petala 5, oblonga, carnosula, glabra, sestivatione valvata, apice 
inflexa, sub anthesi patentia. Stamina 5, petalis alterna, iis- 
dem longiora, ad marginem disci extus affixa ; filamenta fili- 
formia, jestivatione induplicata, in anthesi patentia : anthera; 
oblongse, 2-lob0e, e basi ad medium 2-fid8e, lobis connective 
angustissimo et tenuissimo nexis, sejunctis, parallelis, subru- 
gosis, apice basique interdum glandulis piliformibus donatis, 
singulatim 2-locellatis, valvulis e marginibus contiguis utrin- 
que evolutis et hinc rima longitudinali late hiantibus : in flori- 
bus femineis polline destitutis. Pollen sub-4-gonum, rarius 
3-gonum. Ovarium brevissimum, conicum, glabrum, disco 
pentagono suffultum ; in floribus mascuhs teres, subulatum, 
carnosum, effoetum, stigmate capitato terminatum ; in floribus 
femineis conicum, profunde 3-sulcatum, textura tenui, 3-locu- 
lare, loculis 2 (rarius 1) effoetis : ovulum unicum (vel potius 
gemellum ?) loculum implens, oblongum, funiculo sub-brevi 
ex apice suspensum. Styli 3, loculis ovarii continui, iis di- 
