CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
79 
16. Abuta. 
In 1851 I endeavoured to establish tlie characters of this 
previously obscure genus, which had been fused into Cocculus, 
when 1 referred to it several plants from Guiana and Brazil, 
which appi’oximate in habit and general structure to Aublet’s 
typical species, Abuta rufescens. The leaves are generally of 
large size, broad, often cordate at base, smooth above, and co- 
vered beneath with dense yellowish tomentum, with very promi- 
nent digitate nervures, externally branched, and with strong 
transverse veins. The inflorescence is in long, pubescent, axil- 
lary racemose panicles, and its drupaceous fruits, densely to- 
mentose, contain an oblong coriaceous putamen, with a bimar- 
supiate cell, enclosing a single hippocrepiform seed, having an 
albumen ruminated by numerous fissures, and enclosing an em- 
bryo much resembling that of Tiliacora. 
Prof. Grisebach endeavoured to show, in 1858 (Journ. Proc. 
Linn. Soc. hi. 108), that Abuta, Batschia, and Anelasma con- 
stitute a single genus {Abuta), of which he then gave a new 
generic character in order to embrace the whole ; he there eon- 
firmed the facts I had stated showing their close relation to 
Tiliacora ; but at the same time, following the example of the 
authors of the ‘ Flora Indica,^ he referred both Abuta and Tilia- 
cora to the tribe Cocculea of those botanists. In doing this he 
quite forgot the very important difi’erence between the two oppo- 
site conditions of a deeply ruminated and a simple albumen, 
which are respectively found in the two tribes thus eonfounded 
together, also the very different forms of their embryo, and more 
especially the distinction that, in the one case, the cotyledons 
are accumbent, in the other incumbent — circumstances which 
render the one group essentially incompatible with the other. 
In 1861 Mr. Bentham published his “Notes on Menisperma- 
cea” (Journ. Proc. Linn. Soc. v. Suppl. p. 45), when he followed 
the example of Prof. Grisebach in amalgamating Batschia and 
Anelasma with Abuta, and in a sweeping manner annulled most 
of the species I had indicated, reducing each of the genera thus 
fused together to little better than the condition of a single 
species. 
Messrs. Bentham and Hooker, in their ‘ Genera Plantarum,^ 
regardless of the peculiar structure of the seeds, persist, as before 
stated, in placing Tiliacora and Abuta (including Batschia and 
Anelasma) in the same tribe, and in juxtaposition with Cocculus. 
Finally, MM. Triana and Planchon agree with Dr. Grisebach 
in associating into one all the three genera in question. 
The difficulty of reversing the decisions of these united au- 
thorities is necessarily great, but perhaps not insurmountable. 
