96 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
Blume in his character of Platea : in Griffiths’s plant from ]\Iergui, 
the calp: is furnished at its base, at the point of its articulation 
with the pedicel, with a distinct bract. In this plant, and in 
another from Moulmein, the flowers are axillary, and almost fas- 
ciculated in a very short raceme, but in Cuming’s plant from 
IManilla, the inflorescence is in a spreading panicle, with numerous 
flowers upon lengthened pedicels. Blume, in his generic cha- 
racter of Platea, states that the flowers are dioecious, and that in 
the female flowers the corolla and stamens are altogether wanting. 
The same might almost be said of several species of Stemonurus, 
for as soon as the fertility of the ovarium is clearly discernible, 
the petals and stamens will be found to have fallen off, and from 
analogy we may safely conclude the same to have occurred in 
Platea. Mr. Griffiths in his manuscript note on Phlebocahjmna 
says, “ genus novum Icacinearum, familia singularis oh albumen 
in lobos divaricates et tegumen seminis vasculosissimum : ” this 
remark can hardly apply to his proposed genus, of which it does 
not appear that he had seen the seed, and it is more than pro- 
bable that the allusion was made to Bursinopetalum, a genus 
placed by Dr. Wight (Icon. tab. 956) in the Olacaeece, of w'hich 
the Icacinece had been universally held to be a tribe ; in that 
genus, by the growth of the placentary column of the abortive 
cells, and its protrusion into the cavity of the fertile cell, the 
albumen becomes hippocrepically folded, and somewhat divided 
into two lobes, in the manner clearly demonstrated in the figure 
referred to. I have elsewhere shown that Bursinopetalum belongs 
to the AquifoliacecE. Blume in his ' Mus. Bot. Lugd.’ gives a 
new generic character of Platea ; this will require some modifica- 
tion, if we include in it Phlebocalymna, and with this view I 
now oflier the following diagnosis : — 
Platea, Blume. Phlebocalymna, Griffiths. — Flores hermaphro- 
diti vel SEepissime abortu poly garni : an unquam vere dioici? 
Calyx brevissimus, cupulaias, 5-dentatus, dentibus in praeflora- 
tionem imbricatis,' persistens, sed non augescens. Petala 5, 
linearia, carnosula, sestivatione valvata, apice propendenti in- 
flexo, marginibus rorido-glandulosis, imo in tubum laxe ad- 
haerentibus, e medio libera et reflexa, in flor. fern, fertil. cito 
decidua. Stamina 5, cum petalis inserta, iisdem alterna, fila- 
menta interdum brevia, saepe petalis fere aequilonga, linearia, 
compressa, imo cum petalis laxe adhaerentia : antherce ovato- 
oblongae, basi breviter bifidae, dorso affixae, 4-loculares, 2-lobae, 
lobis singulatim 2-locellatis, demum septicidis, et longitudina- 
liter evolutim dehiscentibus. Pollen globosum, reticulatum. 
Ovarium sterile disco 5-gono 10-sti’iato piloso immersum ; fer- 
tile hberum, conicum, pilosulum, disco annulari glabro insitum, 
