338 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
long, bearing one to three pedicellated flowers ; in two of the 
flowers examined I found seven ovaries ; but Cunningham states 
their number to be six, accompanied by as many sterile stamens, 
and surrounded by three sepals, no mention being made of any 
petals. 
47. Microclisia. 
This genus was made known, in the addenda to the new 
‘Genera Plantarum^ (vol. i. p. 435), by Mr. Bentham, who 
founded it upon an Australian plant from Moreton Bay ; this 
I have lately seen, and here give the results of my examination, 
which somewhat difi'er from the details afforded by that distin- 
guished botanist. In his ‘ Flora Australis ’ (p. 59), published 
since that period, Mr. Bentham has considered his genus to be 
the same as my Pleogyne, the ^ plant of one and the $ of the 
other forming one species. I have seen Mr. Bentham^s typical 
plant in the Hookerian herbarium, from the collection of Dr. 
Mueller; but after attentive examination, on account of the dis- 
parity in the number of sepals, I cannot believe in their identity 
— an opinion strengthened hy reraemhering that in one genus 
there are three stamens, in the other six, and considering also the 
great distance of their localities, in nearly opposite sides of that 
vast continent. As far as can be judged from the evidence now 
existing, it appears to me that Microclisia should be held distinct, 
till we have better proof of their identity. The genus is near 
his African genus Triclisia, agreeing in the more elongated 
form of the three interior sepals, with valvate or introflexed 
sestivation ; but it differs in having its three stamens quite free 
to the base, with anthers of different construction connivent in 
the centre, and in the presence of six petals : it also differs in 
the greater number of its sepals, which Mr. Bentham states at 
eight or nine, while I And them to be eighteen in ternary series, 
all of bract-like proportions, except the inner series, and closely 
imbricated on the summit of the pedicel ; while Triclisia has no 
petals, or only rudiments of them. All the sepals are acute, 
submembranous, pellucidly punctate. The petals, externally 
fixed by their claw to the androecium around the base of the fila- 
ments, are half their length, and a quarter of that of the inner 
sepals ; they are cuneately oval or subrhomboid, concave, sub- 
membranaceous, pale, pellucid-punctate, with two prominent 
fleshy glands on the sides, a little below the middle. The three 
filaments are attached by the slender base to the andrcecium, 
become gradually thicker upwards, incurved at their summit, 
where they terminate in an oval clavate connective; they are 
generally clothed with long soft hairs, sometimes becoming 
