308 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
lately that I ascertained with certainty the structure of the fe- 
male flower and fruit, as derived from Spruce’s plant from 
Tarapota. These showed that my genus JBotryopsis differs in 
no respect, except in the relative size of its petals, and con- 
vinced me that it should now merge into Chondrodendron. Mr. 
Bentham, in his ‘'Notes on Menispermacese ” (Journ. Linn. Soc. 
V. 2nd Suppl. p. 47), misled by Pdppig, also misapprehended the 
nature of the genus, and, influenced by his desire to abridge 
species, even went so far as to state his conviction that the 
Chondrodendron convolvulaceum, Popp., is specifically identical, 
not only with Chondrodendron tomentosum, B. & P., but also with 
several distinct Brazilian species of Odontocarya. In my descrip- 
tion of the latter genus [supra, pp. 59, 60, 99) and of 0. convol- 
vulacea (p. 63), I have animadverted upon these misconceptions. 
Dr. Eichler, in his monograph of the Brazilian Menisperma- 
cece, in Martins’s ‘ Flora Brasiliensis,’ adopts the mistaken views 
of Mr. Bentham, and entangles with Chondrodendron tomentosum, 
R.&P.,all the species of which I have described, amal- 
gamating all into a single species : this confusion is still further 
increased by his description of two species under Botryopsis, 
into the first of which he fuses most of the species of Chondro- 
dendron enumerated below, his second species being confined to 
Spruce’s plant from Tarapota. The copious analyses which he 
has figured in plate 36 for Chondrodendron, in reality represent 
the structure of Odontocarya, a genus belonging to a very dif- 
ferent tribe of the family ; while those given in plate 48 as 
being figurative of Botryopsis illustrate the characters of Chon- 
drodendron. 
Under Botryopsis [1. c. p. 199), Dr. Eichler describes Chondro- 
dendron as being furnished with the unusual number of twelve 
petals, in which respect he is plainly again in error; for, con- 
trary to all analogy, he has considered the six innermost 
sepals to be petals, forgetting that they are the largest of the 
whole series, which are imbricated around them in gradually 
decreasing whorls, and that, like all the rest, they are pubescent 
externally ; while the six true petals are decidedly shoTter and 
glabrous ; and, indeed, in Spruce’s plant (which he correetly 
figures) they are reduced almost to the size of hypogynous scales, 
one-sixth of the length of those sepals which he incorrectly regards 
as petals. The justness of these observations may be seen by 
reference to the analyses given, in plate 48, of his Boti'yopsis 
platyphylla and B. Spruceana. It is therefore evident that 
Chondrodendron does not depart from the usual rule in the family, 
of having six petals, corresponding with an equal number of 
stamens. Owing to this misapprehension, the generic diagnosis 
of Dr. Eichler requires correction : he attributes to the genus 
