18 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
obscure description is as follows : “Bracteolse (palese) l-nervise, 
acutse, apice foliacese connatse in alveolas profundas ovaria tota 
laciniis 5 ellipticis, acutis, ipsis brevioribus coronata includentes.” 
(Linn. vi. 259.) Poppig states that the inner whorls of involu- 
cral leaflets are sometimes small or rudimentary, “ nonnunquam 
minimae vel rudimentariae, sensim in bracteolas (paleas) per re- 
ceptaculum planiusculum sparsas transeuntes.’^ (Nov. Gen. i. 21.) 
DeCandolle makes no mention of the existence of any paleae, 
nor of the fact of their accretion which gave rise to his name of 
Gamocarpha, while the presence of paleae is distinctly specifled 
in all the other genera of the family ; in their place, however, 
he states the existence of a fringed sheath round the base of 
each ovary, which I have not been able to discover : he says, 
“ fimbrillae recept. acutae in alveolas concretae.” From this it is 
manifest that he never examined the plant, that he did not un- 
derstand Lessing’s meaning (rendered still more obscure by 
Poppig’s description), and that he consequently omitted all 
details of this unusual structure. 
I have had an opportunity of examining a plant in the Herba- 
rium of the Paris INIuseum, collected by Gay in the same neigh- 
bourhood as that where Poppig found his specimens ; and this, 
compared with the drawing and description of the latter botanist, 
shows beyond any doubt that it is identical with the typical 
species which Lessing and Poppig have severally described. 
The involucre is here composed of six external folioles, which are 
very thick and fleshy, and united at their base into a short tube, 
upon the margin of the fleshy receptacle ; within this are four 
concentric series of palese, which are nearly of the length and 
size of the folioles, and are equally fleshy and green at their 
summits, though more membranaceous below : they are confluent 
by their margins for half their length, and the intervals between 
them are again divided by a number of membranaceous septa ema- 
nating from the fleshy midribs of some of the palese, and united 
to the margins of others in the adjoining series, forming in this 
manner a number of hollow tubular spaces, in three or four 
irregularly concentric series, spread over the surface of the re- 
ceptacle : each of the spaces thus constituted contains three or 
four florets ; but the spaces here formed are wrongly designated 
alveolse of the receptacle as this term is generally used by bota- 
nists ; hence the term employed by Lessing was evidently mis- 
understood by DeCandolle. I have drawn up the following as 
a more correct expression of its generic features : — 
Gamocarpha, Dec. — Involucrum 5-6-phyllum ; foliola ovata, 
crasso-carnosa, integra, margine subcartilaginea, subacuta, 
imo in tubum brevissimum margini receptaculi coalitum 
