in Myzodendron punctulatum, Banks et Sol. 183 
leaf-axils empty. (A similar sterility is exhibited by the 
apex of the amentum, Fig. 1). In the axil of each of the 
separated scale-leaves of the twig a bud is formed ; one or 
more of the uppermost buds of the twig are vegetative, the 
rest floral. In the following year the buds develop, the 
floral ones become female amenta which fall off at the end of 
the season, the vegetative ones become twigs of the current 
year and repeat the structure just described. As one, two, or 
three vegetative buds may develop into permanent branches, 
the result is a simple sympodium, a false dichotomy or a false 
trichotomy. The clustered habit, like that of Viscum album , 
is in this and the same way accounted for. The current year 
twig thus bears axillary buds only, the mature flowers and 
fruits are not formed till the second year, — a course of events 
which, as well as the mode of branching, is of special interest 
by comparison with similar phenomena in genera of the Loran - 
thaceae. The buds, floral and vegetative, are peculiar, in that 
each one is almost completely covered in by a sheath derived 
from the stem and consisting of two cellular lamellae, of which 
the lower is much the smaller. The cells of the sheath, three 
or four layers thick, lose their contents for the most part, and 
acquire suberised walls. The bud appears at first sight to 
have an endogenous origin. Eichler mentions the occurrence 
of endogenous buds in the P sittacanthus group 1 of the 
Loranthaceae . The scale-leaves of the first year fall off at the 
end of that year, leaving a small scar ; the bud, naked on ex- 
pansion in the second year, pushes the two lips of the cellular 
sheath apart or causes them to fall off. In a three-year-old 
stem a small patch of periderm indicates the position of the 
fallen scale-leaf of the first year, and of the female amentum 
fallen in the second year. Slight complications may arise 
occasionally by the unfolding in the third or later years of a 
dormant vegetative or floral bud. 
1 Eichler, Bliithendiagramme, p. 551. ‘A remarkable fact must herewith 
[ Psittacanthus group] be noted : in most species of this group the inflorescences, 
although in the axils of the leaves, are of endogenous origin, breaking mechanically 
through the covering tissue, and then remaining surrounded by the same at the 
base in the form of a short, irregularly-lobed sheath.’ 
O 
