144 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
erroneous, because a dicoccous berry is hardly consistent with 
the previous condition of two ovaries. It is described as a tree 
with alternate, thick, polished, oval, smooth, and bright green 
leaves, that emit a strong smell of nutmegs ; terminal aromatic 
flowers, with a 3 -fid calyx, eighteen linear petals, twenty-six sta- 
mens, two ovaries, and a dicoccous berry ; the petals are linear, 
flesh-coloured, two or three inches long • the filaments are seta- 
ceous and above half the length of the petals, with globose an- 
thers ; the seeds are arillate, with the flavour of those of coffee, 
only more bitter. This kind of fruit ill accords with the features 
of the Winteracece. Until further evidence of its existence, and 
better characters of its structure be ascertained, it ought to be 
restored to the list of the “ genera incertfe sedis,^’ in which it was 
placed by Jussieu. I cannot help thinking there must have 
been some confusion in the original notes of Molina : he de- 
scribes his Temns moschata as furnishing an excellent and very- 
hard wood, which cannot be of rare occurrence, as he says it is 
much used in Chile in various manufactures. The Luma Cruck- 
shanksii, A. Gray {Eugenia Cruckshanksii, Hook.), which is abun- 
dant in the midland provinces of Chile, is known among the 
natives by the name of Temu; and it possesses a wood that 
answers the above description. 
5. Trochodendron. 
This genus, established by Siebold and Zuccarini for a plant 
which the former botanist brought from Japan, has been fully 
described and figured in the ‘Flora Japonica.’ It has been 
referred to the neighbourhood of Illicium ; but its characters 
seem quite irreconcileable with those of the Winteracece. The 
features which appear to me Incompatible are — its verticillated 
leaves, which are serrated; its peculiar mode of budding; its 
flowers destitute of both calyx and corolla; its single pluri- 
locular ovary ; and its capsular fruit, opening by five to eight 
thick coriaceous valves; to which may he added, the different 
sort of integument by w'hich its seeds are invested. On the 
other hand, in the habit of the plant, its serrated leaves, its 
numerous stamens, its many-celled ovary, with divided style, 
its capsular many-valved fruit, and the form and texture of 
its seminal integument, it approaches far nearer to the Tern- 
stroemiacece •, and it has several features in common with Trocho- 
stigma, also of Japanese origin [Actinidia, Lindl.), placed by 
som.e botanists in Terns trcemiacece, by others in Dilleniacece ; but 
perhaps it comes still nearer to the Tasmanuian Carpodontos 
(congeneric with Eucryphia from Chiloe), a genus of doubtful 
position placed between the Chlcenacece and Ternstroemiacece. In 
