140 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
2. Tasmannia insipida, 11. Br., DC. Syst. i. 445; Prodr. i. 78; 
Bot. Beg. 2 ser. xvii. tab. 43. T. monticola, A. Rich. Sert. 
Astrol. 50. tab. 19. — In Australasia, Port Jackson. 
3. Tasmannia piperita. Drimys piperita, ; Hook. Icon. 
896; — arbuscula glaberrima; rannilis novellis, glaucis; foliis 
concoloribus, oblongo-laiiceolatis, utrinque attenuatis, inte- 
gerrimis, undique glaberrimis, valde reticnlatim venosis, iino 
in petiolum canaliculatum aiigiiste decurrentibus ; pedicellis 
2-3, unifloris, e pulvino axillari ortis, floribus inonoico-poly- 
gainis; calyce 2-partito ; petalis 8-10, lineari-oblongis, ob- 
tusis ; stamina circiter 30, aut nulla ; ovaria 1 ad 4. — Borneo ; 
V. s. in hb. Hook. 
I have already stated some of my reasons for referring this 
plant to Tasmannia rather than to Drimys. The latter genus 
has been found only in the western world and in the islands of 
Juan Fernandez and New Zealand, the plants of which latter 
country present so many curious analogies with the extratropical 
flora of the South American continent. Dr. Hooker has given 
an admirable figure of this species; and in describing it he ac- 
knowledges its close alliance to the genus Tasmannia, on account 
of its unisexual flowers and its few carpels, which are two of the 
principal characters that serve to distinguish this genus from 
Drimys. I have already alluded to the shape of its stigma, 
which has quite the peculiar form of that of Tasmannia, and to 
its stamens, which also correspond to that genus ; and to these 
features may be added, that its leaves are deficient of the pecu- 
liar glaucous under surface that universally marks those of Dri- 
mys ; they are, on the contrary, concolorous, extremely reticu- 
lated, and the petiole is slightly winged, as in T. insipida. I 
have observed, in the same specimen, female flowers with no' 
stamens, and only a single ovary; and hermaphrodite flowers 
with thirty stamens in four rows, and one ovary : others have 
four ovaries ; and in all three cases I found eight petals in two 
series. 
3. Illicium. 
This genus is too well known, and its relation to Drimys and 
Tasmannia is too well established, to require much notice; hut 
1 will offer a few observations upon its seed, which in its struc- 
ture is quite analogous to that of the genera just mentioned. 
The best details of the generic features of Illicium are given in 
the admirable work of Dr. Asa Gray, ‘ The Genera of the United 
States,’ where, in plate 21, there is an excellent analysis of Illi- 
cium Floridanum, from which we may conclude that there is no 
