258 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
space runs across the axis anteriorly and posteriorly, filled 
with a compressed plate, which is the columella that supplies 
the nomdshing vessels for the growth of ovules and seeds. 
This growth is constant throughout the EhretiacecB. The sub- 
sequent developments of the fruit in the different genera 
become modified in the manner already described. 
In the Bon-raginacece there exists in the earlier stages a 
normally bicarpal development very similar to that of Cordia\ 
but diming the subsequent growth there is a tendency to a 
separation of the whole into four cai-pels, more or less bi- 
geminately combined in pairs ; the style remains free in the 
centre, supported upon a common gynobase, upon which the 
four carpels are affixed, and from which fheir ovules and seeds 
derive their nomdshing vessels. This constitutes a subfamily 
marked by many peculiar characters : it requires, however, a 
thorough reinvestigation. 
In the Heliotropiacece, the ovary, normally as well as at 
matmdty, is bicarpellary, and the carpels are seated upon a 
conical gynobase of half their height. The style is usually 
very short, thick, and suddenly enlarged into a pulvinate or 
discoid form ; and this is terminated by two sessile stigmata, 
more or less abbreviated. The fruit is generally exsuccous, 
divisible into four single or into two bilocular nuts ; when four 
nuts are produced, there is a short placentary process that 
rises from the g^mobase, to which the nucules are attached, 
and which answers the {)urpose of the columella seen in the 
Ehretiacecp, in affording nutrition to the seeds ; they are not 
bigcminately connected, as in that family. 
Hence it will be seen that the Cordiacece possess characters 
which amply distinguish them from the EhretiacecB^ Heliotro- 
piacece^ and Borraginacece. Nearly all the speeies of the 
family have been' huddled into the single genus Cordia^ be- 
cause no one has taken the trouble to ascertain their true 
characters, their examination having been singularly neglected. 
It is remarkable that, among the 175 species of Cordia enu- 
merated by De Candolle in his ‘ Prodromus,’ the number of 
cells existing in the fruit is mentioned in only foui' cases, and 
utter silence is maintained throughout the whole in regard to 
the number of cells in the ovary, even in the generie charac- 
ter ; and the point of suspension of the ovules and attachment 
of the seeds is everywhere ignored. Prof. Fresenius, in 
working the monograph of the family for Martius’s ‘ Flora 
Brasiliensis,’ contents himself with a few words in stating the 
ordinal character : in regard to its 4-lo.cular ovary, he merely 
says there is an anatropous ovule in each cell, appended from 
the summit (which is not exactly trae) ; and in regard to the 
