CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
131 
very distinct species, as their characters respectively show. The 
leaves are 3|-4 inches long, 2-2^ inches broad, on a petiole of 
9 lines long and 2 lines broad. The fruit is of the same form, 
size, and structure as in the preceding species. 
3. Bursinopetalum tetrandrum, Thwaites, Enum. PI. Zeyl. i. 42. — 
Ceylon. 
I saw long since, in Sir Wm. Hooker’s herbarium, a plant 
collected in Malacca by Griffith, which in its habit and floral 
structure agrees with Bursinopetalum. Although its flowers are 
tetrandrous, I hardly think it will be found identical with the 
Ceylon plant. 
On Goupia. 
The place which' this little-known genus should occupy in the 
system has not yet been satisfactorily established, although its 
typical species was described and figured by Aublet (PI. Guy. i. 
296, tab. 116) more than eighty years ago. Willdenow con- 
sidered it to belong to the Araliacece. Jussieu placed it in 
Rhamnacece — a view that was afterwards adopted by most bota- 
nists. Endlicher, however, classed it among the dubious genera 
of Celastraceee, which opinion was followed by Dr. Lindley in 
his ‘Vegetable Kingdom’ (p. 588). All these conclusions were 
founded on the drawing and description of Aublet, as no other 
botanist up to that time appears to have examined the genus. 
Mr. Bentham, however (in 1852), gave more ample details of its 
floral structure (Kew Journ. Bot. iv. 11), on which he founded 
an emended generic character. Notwithstanding the many inter- 
esting facts there communicated, he regarded its position in the 
system as still uncertain : he remarked that the alternation of 
the stamens with the petals favom’ed the opinion of its affinity 
with the Celastracere •, but he considered that the structure of 
the ovaiy brought it nearer to the B'uttneriacece, because it is 
crowned by five divaricated styles and its ovules are affixed to 
the axis of a 5-celled ovary. Recently (in 1861) Dr. Reisseck 
(in Mart. Flor. Bras, xxviii. p. 34) gives his opinion positively that 
Goupia differs in no respect from the Buttrieriacece, except in its 
baccate fruit, and that its immediate affinity is with the Biitt- 
neriece and Theobromece : though speaking so decidedly, he can- 
not have examined the structure of the genus, as otherwise, I 
am convinced, he could not have come to this conclusion. 
With all the respect due to so distinguished an authority as 
Mr. Bentham, I beg to suggest that Goupia offers very slender 
claims of affinity towards the Biittneriaceee. My reasons are 
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