176 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
its cavity is below the line of junction of the calyx with the 
corolla; a soUd disk or torus nevertheless supports the ovary, 
and interposes between it and the summit of the peduncle, the 
margin of which, adnate to the base of the calyx, sometimes rises 
a little above the line mentioned, but only in a trifling degree, 
which is a variable character in the same plant. 
Prof. Agardh, again, speaking of my deflnition of Styrax, 
remarks, “ nec ovarium vidi superne uniloculare, nec podospermio 
cupulato, nec in flore saltern placentam centralem.” Now my 
own observations upon dried specimens of S. officinale are com- 
pletely at variance with the above citation : its ovary appears to 
me unmistakeably unilocular in the summit, as I have constantly 
found in Strigilia, Cyrta, and Pamphilia. The fact is confirmed 
by the definition of the genus in DeCandolle’s ‘ Prodromus^ (viii. 
259)*; and it is so figured in Delessert’s ‘ leones^ (tab. 42 & 43). 
’ In regard to the next point, although I may not have been 
sufficiently precise in stating that the ovules in the Styracinece 
are borne upon cup-shaped podosperms, I find there, what is 
nearly equivalent, that they are almost sessile upon rugose 
prominences of the placenta, which conceal their micropylar ex- 
tremity, — the raphe, as above shown, being next the axis in the 
upper series : these prominences, whether considered as portions 
of the placenta, or as belonging to the funicles, are precisely 
analogous to the protuberances he has shown to exist in nume- 
rous other cases, where he calls them “ telae conductrices ” — 
as in Calla, tab. 2. fig. 10; Arctostaphylos, tab. 9. figs. 15 & 
16; Cluytia, tab. 15. fig. 16; Hebenstreitia, tab. 17. fig. 11 ; 
Hedera, tab. 20. fig. 2 ; Erinus, tab. 28. figs. 1 & 2 ; and, finally, 
he shows these very prominences in Styrax officinale, tab. 21. 
fig. 13, which he defines thus : “ gemmulas in placenta lobosa 
magna inter lobos inserta.” The central placentation attached 
to the short incomplete dissepiments cannot be doubted, follow- 
ing as a necessary consequence of the structure above demon- 
strated. 
Prof. Agardh (/. c. tab, 22. figs. 16 & 17) confirms my obser- 
vations upon the direction of the ovules in Halesia tetraptera : 
he also repeats what I have said, that in the ripe seed the 
chalazal extremity is either superior or inferior, according to 
whether an erect or pendent ovule has been fertilized ; but his 
view of the structure of the ovary, that the expansion of the 
placenta divides its space into superior and inferior cells, is not 
* Prof. A. DeCandolle states, in his generic character of Styrax (1. c.), 
solely on the authority of Richard, cited as far back as 1/81, that the ovary 
at its base is adnate to the calyx. Richard probably had confounded the 
flower of Halesia, which is hardly distinguishable from that of Styrax, ex- 
cepting the difierence in question. 
