CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
203 
Fresenius (in 1857), in Mart. Flor. Bras., enumerated twenty- 
six Brazilian species of Tournefortia, among which are several 
belonging to Messerschmidtia ; but he did not adopt this name, 
even as a section, apparently unaware of the peculiar structure 
of its fruit : the species of both these genera are therefore 
indiscriminately mingled together in that work. In order to 
clear away the mystification engendered by these several dis- 
cordant views, it appears necessary to define the true limits of 
Messerschmidtia with greater accmraey — a task of no great 
difficulty, as I have found its characters constant in all the 
species I have examined. It may readily be distinguished 
from Tournefortia and Heliophytum by its four monospermous 
nucules, in which respect, however, it accords with Heliotro- 
pium ; but it differs from all those genera in the greater length 
of its naiTOw acuminated sepals, in the narrow segments of 
the border of its corolla, which are cleft to the base, in the 
hippocrepiform duplicatm’e of its carjiels, in the depressed 
form of its 4-lobed fruit, in the extreme curvatime of its 
embiyo, and generally in its climbing habit. Heliophytum 
and Heliotropium differ in the very imbricated {estivation of 
the lobes of their corolla. In Tournefortia, where the lobes 
of the border are not cleft to the base, these are simply folded 
together in a plicato-valvate {estivation, while the intermediate 
plicatures in the sinus of the lobes make a fornix over the 
mouth of the tube. In Messerschmidtia the extremely naiTow 
lobes of the border in the bud are quite involute by the rolling 
inwards of their margins, the {estivation being thus subvalvate, 
not by the margins, but by the juxtaposition of the rounded 
inflect^ smlaces of the lobes. 
Messerschmidtia, R. & Sch. (non Linn.). — Sepala 5, longe 
linearia, saspe setiformia, erecta, tubum corollie siepe lequan- 
tia, persistentia. Corolla tubulosa, tubo angusto, plicis 5 
longitudinalibus sulcato, cum angulis nervigeris, supra me- 
dium paululo inflato, fauce constricta, limbo ad basin 5- 
partito, laciniis linearibus vel anguste lanceolatis, stellatim 
expansis, aestivatione involutiva. Stamina 5, inclusa, infra 
faucem fere sessilia ; filamenta brevissima, longe supra me- 
dium tubi orta, tenuia ; antherce obconice oblongm, tubo 6- 
plo breviores, imo sagittatie, dorso ad sinum affixie, apicibus 
mucronatis pilosulis circa stigma fomicatim cohajreutes, 
2-loculares, loculis collateralibus rlma longitudinal! latera- 
liter dehiscentibus, glabrie. Discus parvus, hyjiogynus, 
margine crenulato. Ovarium conico-oblongum, in stylum 
gradatlm angustatum, disco insitum, 4-loculare, loculis 1- 
ovulatis ; ovulo suspense. Stylus longiusculus, filiformis. 
