66 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
Barter is one that presents much the habit of a Chasmanthera ; 
the structure of its putamen is sufficiently remarkable to make 
it the type of a new genus. The plant has a climbing Cissoid 
habit, with large, cordate, oblong, membranaceous leaves, sup- 
ported on a rather lengthened petiole. It has an axillary simple 
fructiferous raceme, longer than its elongated petiole, with a 
somewhat flexuose rachis, having alternate fructiferous pedicels ; 
the drupes are oval, slightly gibbous, fleshy, about | inch long, 
containing an oval and somewhat compressed putamen, covered 
along its sides and over its dorsal face with crowded, erect, 
stoutish spines, truncated at their apex, and terminated by a 
short tuft of fibrous hairs ; the ventral face is smooth, formed 
by a large convex raised condyle, of an oval shape, with a long 
linear foramen down the middle, opening into a large hollow 
chamber which protrudes far into the cell. The seed is oval, 
meniscoid, slightly hollow on its ventral side, showing a longi- 
tudinal raphe the length of the delicate integument which covers 
a simple albumen ; the embryo, of the shape usual in the Hetero- 
cliniecE, has its cotyledons imbedded in distinct cavities in the 
albumen. The whole plant is glabrous, but neither its male nor 
female flowers are known. In many of its characters it ap- 
proaches Aspidocarya, Parabcena, Odontocarya, and Jateorhiza, 
but differs from all of them in having a very large 1-locellate 
chamber in the condyle of its putamen. Its name is derived 
from piyio^, horridus, Kapva, nwc, in allusion to its hystricoid 
putamen. 
Rhigiocarya, gen. nov. — Flores det $ ignoti. Drupa ovoidea, 
pulposa, uviformis; putamen ovoideum, compressum, osseo- 
testaceum, 1-loculare, crista lamelliformi apiculata lateribus 
et dorso nndique crebre echinata, spinis rectis apice trun- 
catis, singulis fascicula pilorum terminatis; condylus faciem 
ventralem fere totam occupans, scutiformis, prominens, sub- 
convexus, Isevis, extus meatu lineari longulo perforatus, ample 
1-caineratus, et intra loculum seminis valde intrusus : semen 
loculo conforme, meniscoideo-ovatum, facie ventrali concavqm, 
extus convexum; integumenta tenuissima, raphe ventrali longi- 
tudinali notata ; embryo paulo convexus, intra albumen carno- 
sum simplex inclusus, cotxjledonibus tenuiter foliaceis, late- 
raliter valde divaricatis, in locellis albuminis sejunctim positis, 
radicula tereti brevi supera ad stylum spectante ter longioribus. 
Suffrutex scandens Africce tropicce occidentalis, glaberrimus •, folia 
magna, late oblonga, valde cordata, 'b-nervia, submembranacea, 
petiolo elongato ; racemi fructiferi supira-axillares, solitarii, 
glaberrimi, petiolo longiores, pedicellis simplicibus ; drupse uvi- 
formes, pulposa. 
