groups, with the exception of Gynandrosae, there is at one point a very low 
form of organization, and at another a very high form. In the following lines 
the genera which are equivalent to each other in these respects are placed one 
over the other : — 
Group 1. Epigynosoe, 
highest form Musaceae ; lowest form Hydrocharaceae. 
2. Gynandrosse 
? 
? 
3. Hypogynosae 
Palmaceae ; 
Juncaceae. 
4. Retosae . 
Dioscorea 
5. Spadicosae . 
. Pandanaceae ; 
Pistiaceae. 
6. Glumosae . 
Bambuseae ; 
Eriocauloneae. 
Are we to infer this, that Gynandrosae ought to be sunk in 
Epigynosae ? 
Alliance I. PANDALES. 
Essential Character. — Flowers on a spadix. Fruit drupaceous. Leaves rigid and 
with parallel veins. Stem usually arborescent. 
(3rder CCLIX. PANDANACE^. The Screwpine Tribe. 
Pandane^, R. Brown Prodr. 340. (1810) ; De Cand. Propr. MSd.218. (1816); Agardh Aph. 
133. (1822) ; Gaudichaud in Ann. des Sc. 3. 509. (1824) ; Schott et Endlicher Mele- 
temata, p. 15. (1832). 
Essential Character. — Flowers dioecious or polygamous, arranged on a wholly covered 
spadix. Perianth wanting. Males: Filaments with single anthers; anthers 2-celled. 
Females: Ovaries usually collected in parcels, 1 -celled; stigmas as many as the ovaries, 
sessile, adnate {ovules solitary, erect) . Fruit either ^fibrous drupes, usually collected in 
parcels, each 1 -seeded ; or many-celled berries, with polyspermous cells. Albumen fleshy ; 
embryo in its axis, erect (not slit on one side) ; plumule inconspicuous. — Stem arborescent, 
usually sending dowm aerial roots, sometimes weak and decumbent. Leaves imbricated, in 
three rows, long, linear-lanceolate, amplexicaul. With their margins almost always spiny. 
Floral leaves smaller, often coloured. R. Br. 
Affinities. This is a tribe of plants having the aspect of gigantic Bro- 
melias, bearing the flowers of a Sparganium. While there is no analogy with 
the former in structure beyond the general appearance of the foliage ; the or- 
ganisation of the fructification bears so near a resemblance to the latter as to 
have led to the combination of PandanaceEe and Typhacese by botanists of the 
first authority. But when we contrast the naked flowers, the compound 
highly- developed fruit, the spathaceous bracts, the entire embryo, and the ar- 
borescent habit of the former, with the half-glumaceous flowers, the simple 
fruit, the want of spathaceous bracts, the slit embryo, and the herbaceous 
sedgy habit of the latter, it is difficult to withhold our assent from the propo- 
sition to separate them. Brown justly remarks {Prodr. 341.), that these have 
no affinity with Palms beyond their arborescent stems. Freycinetia, the genus 
to which the character of polyspermous cells, minute seeds, and a pulpy peri- 
carp belongs, is described by Gaudichaud as having a very minute embryo 
lodged in the upper part of semitransparent albumen. Pandanacese are re- 
markable among arborescent monocotyledons for their constant tendency to 
branch, which is always effected in a dichotomous manner. Their leaves have 
also a uniform spiral arrangement round the axis, so as to give the stems a 
sort of corkscrew appearance before the traces of the leaves are worn away. 
The Chandelier Tree of Guinea and St. Thomas’s derives its name (Pandanus 
