CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
167 
philia and Halesia ; but he is certainly under misapprehension 
regarding the fonner genus, as may be seen by reference to 
Delessert’s ‘ leones Selectse ’ (vol. v. pi. 42), where we find in 
Pamphilia styracifolia, as well as in Foveolaria ferruginea 
(pi. 43), a superior ovary with precisely such a structure as I have 
described. I shall presently show that the ovary of Halesia at 
an early stage quite conforms to that of Styrax, notwithstanding 
the subsequent difference in the development of the fruit and 
seed, and that it bears no analogy whatever with that of Sym- 
plocos. 
6. The last objection refers to my definition that in the Sty- 
racece the fruit consists of a unilocular putamen with a single 
erect seed, in contradistinction to that of Symplocos, where a 
single seed of very different structure is suspended in each of its 
five cells, and where, by abortion, it is often unilocular : in op- 
position to which. Dr. Gray shows that in Halesia often one, but 
sometimes three seeds are perfected in as many distinct cells, 
and that two are matured in Pterostyrax. To this I fully assent; 
but at the same time I shall be able to show that in Halesia the 
remarkable development of its seed results from an ovary exhi- 
biting exactly the same normal structure as that of Styrax, and 
that it offers no analogy whatever with the fruit and seed of the 
Symplocacea. 
The structure and growth of the ovary and fruit of Halesia 
have been misunderstood equally by Gaertner, Don, Endlicher, 
and DeCandolle. In H. tetraptera the upper moiety of the ovary 
is quite free, rising in a conical form above the mouth of the 
calyx, and is completely unilocular within ; inside its lower or 
adnate moiety, at its base, we find a depressed placentary axis 
connected with the walls of this portion by four very short, thin 
partitions, so that it is here spuriously four-locellate ; and upon 
the short placentary axis, in each of these divisions, are seen four 
oblong ovules, two of them superior and standing erect, the 
others being pendulous within the eavity, all being attached by 
the short and sharp point of one of their extremities : laterally 
these ovules are separated by an interval ; but vertically the 
points of attachment of each upper and lower ovule are approxi- 
mated upon a minute prominence of the placenta. The space 
above the placenta is completely unilocular, comprising five- 
sixths of the entire length of the ovary ; and the four short basal 
partitions are seen continuous with as many parietal nervures, 
that extend thence to the summit, where they are prolonged for 
some distance into the hollow style. This structure, irrespective 
of the number of ovules and partitions, agrees precisely with 
that of Styrax, with this difference, that in the latter genus the 
ovules are inserted upon separate tuberculiform processes ema- 
