744 Hemsley. — On the Genus Corynocarpus , Forst ., 
a copy of the description, which is very full and accurate in 
most of the details. The most important point in which it 
differs from what I have observed and what other authors have 
described, or figured, is the shape of the petaloid staminodes. 
They describe them as c apice tricuspidata, cuspide intermedio 
duplo maiore.’ As may be seen from the accompanying 
figures, the staminodes of C. similis and C. dissimilis are 
acutely toothed at the apex, whilst those of C. laevigata are 
irregularly and minutely toothed from about the middle 
upwards and around the top. There can be no doubt about 
Banks and Solander’s specimens having been brought from 
New Zealand, because exact localities are given, and because 
Cook did not visit the New Hebrides on his first voyage. 
On the second voyage he touched at several of the islands ; 
but the Forsters record their Corynocarpus from New Zealand, 
and their figures and description of the staminodes convey no 
information whatever beyond the presence of such bodies in 
the flower. Banks and Solander also describe a fully developed 
fruit in the following terms : ‘ Drupa oblongo-ovalis, glaberrima, 
lutea, magnitudine Olivae Hispanicae (ij unc.), substantia 
carnosa, lutea sesquilineam crassa edulis/ They further 
describe the ‘ nucleus ’ [seed] as ‘ amarissimus.’ 
Unfortunately Banks and Solander’s specimens in the 
British Museum only bear two imperfect flowers, and therefore 
it is almost, or quite, impossible to test the accuracy of their 
drawing and description, though there is no reason to doubt 
it, except the fact that the staminodes are different from those 
figured and described by others. Forsters’ specimens in the 
British Museum bear a number of flowers, and in one examined 
the staminodes are of the usual form of those of C. laevigata. 
It is quite probable, however, that there is considerable 
variation in this organ in all three species, as, in C. similis , 
they vary from three- to nine-toothed at the apex. 
The earliest writers, subsequent to the Forsters, attempted 
the classification of Corynocarpus from the description and 
figures of the latter. Scopoli (i 777) placed it in his 
‘ Nomadeae,’ the definition of which I have not mastered. 
