CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
113 
Wight to Olacacece, but it cannot belong to that family, on ac- 
count of the structure of its ovary and the mode of suspension 
of its ovules, in which respects there is a perfect analogy to the 
structure of Villaresia. 
I will shortly detail the observations I have recently made on 
the peculiar structure of Bursinopetalum, and will endeavour to 
indicate its real affinity. 
Although, as before stated, the aestivation of the petals in 
Villaresia is broadly imbricative, their summits are always in- 
flected and folded into each other, so that it is sometimes diffi- 
cult to unravel a bud. This occurs also in Bursinopetalum and 
in other genera of the family, as in the male flowers of j^xtoxi- 
cum, for example. The greater or less degree of inflection of 
the summits of the petals is nearly universal in the Icacinacece, 
and this occurs sometimes to a great extent ; but as the sestiva- 
tion there is completely valvate, the separation of the parts in 
the bud is quite easy. 
Another peculiarity exists in Villaresia — the presence of hol- 
low glands imbedded in the parenchyma of its leaves, each with 
a pervious opening on the lower face, always situated within the 
axils of the primary nerves or in the sinus of their first bifurca- 
tions : this peculiarity is not confined to the typical species in 
which I first observed it. Ruiz and Pavon notice the occurrence, 
which they attribute to the work of insects ; but this is not pro- 
bable, because these porous glands present themselves regularly 
in the axils, exactly in the same position, and appear as con- 
stantly in the several Brazilian species as in those of Chilian 
growth. Sometimes the base of the nerve, where it joins the 
midrib, is expanded like a lamellar plate, forming a hollow pouch 
beneath it, with the porous aperture in its mouth ; generally the 
hollow within the parenchyma is not much larger than the open 
pore itself. 
Villaresia was considered to be a genus peculiar to Chile, but 
it has since been found in the Banda Oriental and in Southern 
Brazil, and even within the tropics as far as 15° S. lat. These 
Brazilian plants have all been considered by Reisseck as identical 
with the type of Chilian growth ; but the characters here given 
show them to be specifically distinct. In habit they all much 
resemble those of Ilex, the leaves in some species of both genera 
being often spinoso-dentate ; in others they are quite entire. It 
is probable that they contain theine, as in Ilex Paraguayensis 
and other species of that genus ; for the leaves of the Ilex Con- 
gonha of Martius, which is a species of Villaresia, are used in 
Brazil as tea, the Brazilian term congonha being synonymous 
with the word yerba, as the tea of Paraguay is called. It may 
sometimes be difficult to distinguish the plants of Villaresia from 
TOL. II. Q 
