UONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANT. 
293 
and arching together within the margin and immersed in the 
parenchyma. The inflorescence is peculiar, and greatly resem- 
bles that of Anelasma, generally consisting of a very elongated, 
slender rachis, with numerous filiform, lax, corymbose branehes 
and very minute pedicellated flowers; from two to four of these 
raceme-like panicles issue from a tuft of hairs placed at a con- 
siderable distance above each axil. The embryo, without albu- 
men, has large, fleshy, accumbent cotyledons, which nearly fill 
the entire space of the cell of the putamen. This genus is con- 
fined entirely to the South-American continent, the Antilles, and 
Mexico. 
Dr. Eichler, in his monograph of the Brazilian Menispermacece, 
refers all the species of Hyperbtena which he describes to the 
genus Pachygone, the plants of which are exclusively of Asiatic 
origin. No botanist will second this conclusion who attentively 
compares the structure of the two genera. In Pachygone the 
petals are more linear, indexed at the summit, with basal auri- 
cular lobes which incurvingly embrace and conceal the base of 
the filaments, and the 4-lobed introrse anthers, without inter- 
vening connective, burst bivalvately by a horizontal fissure — all 
as in Cocculus, and quite difl'erent from Hyperbana : the latter 
genus has also another form of putamen, with a very different 
kind of condyle. Besides the difference in the floral and seminal 
characters, the general aspect of the plants, and more especially 
the peculiar mode of venation of the leaves, render it impossible 
for any attentive observer to confound the one genus with the 
other. 
Mr. Bentham acknowledged the validity of Hyperbtena (Journ. 
Proc. Linn. Soc. v. Suppl. 50), but made great perplexity among 
the species by fusing together my H. Mexicana, Hostmanni, 
Moricandi, valida, and graciliflora into his H. reticulata, a species 
founded on a plant quite foreign to the genus : this is the Coc- 
culus reticulatus, Mart., the Anomospermum reticulatum, Eichl. 
El. Bras. fasc. xxxix. 171, tab. 37. f. 3. 
I have here indicated fifteen very distinct species, of which 
the first twelve, as in the typical plant, have an elongated slen- 
der inflorescence, while the last three present in each axil a 
fascicle of several extremely short panicles, with numerous 
flowers crowded into an almost sessile oblong head. 
Hyperb.ena, nob. — Flores dioici. Masc. Sepala 6, obovata vel 
ovalia, biseriata, 3 interiora majora, ssepe glandulis resinosis 
medio notata. Petala 6, dimidio minora, subbiseriata, ovata, 
integra, subplana vel rarius lateribus subintroflexa. Stamina 
6, biserialia, petalis opposita et rarius longiora; filamenta 
apice incrassata et subdilatata ; antherce snbdidymae vel 2-lobge, 
