CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
303 
persistent calyces. After examining it attentively, I have come 
to the conclusion that it is not a Colletia, though probably be- 
longing to the same tribe. Attached to the sheet in which it is 
enclosed is a small cai’touch, containing some loose drupes, and 
labelled “Volkameria calva.’^ These drupes are without any 
calyx, are fleshy, dark-coloured, apiculated by the base of the 
style, and 5 lines in diameter ; they contain each two nuts, which 
quite correspond with the structure of that genus. We may 
therefore inquire, do these drupes belong to the specimen 
in question ? It appears to me they do not ; for if they had 
been there when Brongniart described his “ Colletia tetragona” 
he would not have failed to notice so manifest a clue to the 
affluity of the plant. It is therefore most probable that these 
seeds have been since placed there by mistake. This conclusion 
is confirmed by an examination of the specimen. In Volkameria 
and other Verbenaceous plants of the same tribe, the occasional 
presence of spines is owing to the growth of the petioles of abor- 
tive leaves; and we invariably find in all such cases both the 
inflorescence and young branchlet sprouting out from above 
such spine. But in the specimen in question, as in all the 
Colletieay the spine is not produced from a petiole : it is superior 
not only to the floriferous branch, but also to the peculiar process 
which seiwed as a support to the fallen leaf; for that calloid 
process shows a scar upon its extremity, indicating the articula- 
tion of the petiole upon it, similar to the same structure seen in 
Scypharia Gnayaquilensis, only that in the former ease the lateral 
teeth are not developed : the floriferous branch, as in the Colle- 
tiece, rises from between that process and the spine, and is quite 
analogous to the racemose twig of the species last mentioned ; 
it has a similar 4-angled stem, with salient angles, and the 
flov/ers in both cases are nearly sessile, and placed at some di- 
stance in decussate pairs. In this specimen of ” Colletia tetra- 
gona,” although the fruit has fallen away, the persistent calyx is 
of a somewhat campanulate form, with five short rounded lobes, 
and within, at its base, is the vestige of an apparently small 
disk, with a free border, showing in the middle the scar where 
the fruit was attached. There is another consideration : in 
Volkameria spinosa, and other species of that genus, the inflo- 
reseence is a cyme, 3-chotomously branched, the flowers being 
borne upon long slender pedicels, bracteated at their base ; but 
in this plant the flowers are arranged in almost sessile pairs 
upon a straight rachis. These circumstances induce me to 
retain the plant among the Colletiece, where Brongniart first 
plaeed it, and to arrange it provisionally in Scypharia, with 
which it ofiiers so many points of analogy, until a better know- 
ledge can be obtained concerning it. I may also add that its 
