260 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
to a small basal chalaza ; at the base of the nut, on the same 
side, a compressed open channel is seen, leading to the small 
abortive cells, filled with a chord of nomdshing vessels which 
communicate with the hilum of the fertile seed. I have exa- 
mined the ovaries and fruits of many Brazilian species of 
Cordia, all giving nearly similar results ; and we may infer, 
fi-om the preponderance of all this evidence, with a tolerable 
degree of confidence, that the ovules in the ovary or the 
seeds in their nuts are never affixed to the base of the cells, 
but are always attached nearer their middle, either above or 
below it, in the internal angle. In addition to this evidence, 
Koxburgh affirms of C. serrata that its ovules are affixed in 
the axis. 
The Cordia Myxa of Roxburgh appears to me a very dif- 
ferent plant from that figured by Wight, under that name, in 
his ‘ Illustrations,’ in which the leaves are larger and the fruit 
is more than double the size. I have examined the finit of 
('ordia ohlongifolia, Thw., which corresponds completely in 
size, especially in the persistent calyx, with the figure of 
('. }[i/xa in Wight’s ‘ Illusti-ations.’ Here the drupe is almost 
globular, with a short conical apex, and is seated in a thick, 
striated, cupular calyx, with a denticulated margin ; the peri- 
carp is extraordinarily thick, composed of numerous coarse 
woody fibres, after the manner of a cocoa-nut, within which 
is a fleshy mesocarp that envelops the nut : this nut is scarcely 
more than half the length and one-third the breadth of the 
pericarp, and is marked externally with a few deep hollow 
j)unctures ; it has two fertile cells (the other two being abor- 
tive), with a lai'ge hollow cavity in the base, which is con- 
tinued up the axis in a narrow channel which is open at the 
toothed apex of the nut ; here the seed in each cell is attached 
by its middle, certainly not below it, at the point where the 
})lacentarv vessels from the centi-al columella enter the cells 
in communication with the descending raphe. Roxburgh’s 
( 'ordia monoica has a much smaller drujie, which is oblong, 
only I inch long, with a much thinner, fibrous pericarp, and 
a fleshy mesocai'p covering a nut which has only a single 
.seed, attached near its middle. Cordia Bantamensis^ BL, a 
species closely allied to the above, has an oblong apiculated 
drupe, longer and naiTOwer than in C. ohlongifolia^ seated in 
its cupidar calyx : the nut is 1-celled, with the indications of 
thin waxy albumen ; it is polished inside, and marked with several lon- 
gitudinal nerve-lilce lines, produced by pressiue between the plicatures of 
tlie cotyledons : but both these integuments are quite void of any vessels, 
except those of the raphe, which are enclosed in a sheath imbedded 
between them. 
