CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
341 
not fertilized. Each drupe has its own peculiar fleshy carpo- 
podium, by which it is attached and articulated upon the sum- 
mit of the long carpophorum ; but the latter is in no degree 
articulated with the torus, being evidently a growth of its sub- 
stance. 
Mr. Bentham describes the female flower, which he had seen, 
as having nine sepals in three series, those of the inner whorl 
being much larger ; it had no petals; no mention is made of 
staminodia; and the ovaries are said to be from nine to twelve 
(I think I have seen as many as sixteen), all in a single whorl ; 
they are pubescent and seated upon an elevated gynsecium ; 
the style, rising excentrically from the inner angle, is subulate, 
channelled above, and somewhat reflected over the summit of 
the ovary. The drupe is somewhat puberulous, very fleshy, 
reniformly globose, with the remnant of the style below the 
middle of the side facing the axis ; the putamen consists of a 
thin coriaceous shell, reniformly oval, subcompressed, with a 
rather deep sinus on the ventral side, where it is somewhat 
thickened, forming an obsolete condyle, which intrudes a short 
way within the cell, where it is convex, and to which the integu- 
ment of the seed is attached : the embryo, which fills the cavity 
of the cell, is exalbuminous, lunate in shape, the cotyledons 
being accumbent, very thick and fleshy, conjoined at their upper 
extremity by a minute conical radicle, which points to the ves- 
tige of the style. 
From the foregoing evidence it is clear that the genus Sciado- 
tenia, of which the female flower only is known, belongs to the 
Pachygonea, and offers some analogy with Pleogyne in having 
an unusual number of pubescent ovaries arranged in a single 
whorl upon a raised gynsecium. Whether Elissarrhena has any 
relationship with it cannot be known till its female flower or 
fruit be discovered ; but it is worthy of note that both are from 
Guiana, and that their branches are fistulous and filled with 
pith. 
SciADOTENiA, vioh.—Flores dioici. Masc. ignoti. — Foem. Se- 
pala 9, in ordine ternario disposita, gradatim minora, exteriora 
bracteiformia, interiora intermediis 2-plo majora. Petala 
nulla. Ovaria 8 ad 16, gibba, uniserialiter supra gynsecium 
paulo elevatum insita, 1-locularia, 1-ovulata. Stylus excen- 
tricus, angulo interiore ortus, supra ovarium inflexus, subu- 
latus, superne sulcatus. Drupce 9 vel abortu pauciores, gib- 
boso-ovatse, paulo compressse, carnosse, carpopodio carnoso 
breviter stipitatse et singulatim ad carpophorum proprium arti- 
culatse : carpophora tot quot drupse, sub-4-gona, 8-sulcata, 
puberula,elongata,e toro orta, suberecta, umbellam mentientia. 
