330 
NOTE ON YAYJEA AND HHYTIDANDEA. 
from all those previously examined in having only twice as many stamens as petals. — 
conforming' in this respect to the type of the andrcecium in the order Meliacecs , except 
only that the filaments are not monadelphous to the top. The anthers being rather 
smaller than usual, and containing little good pollen, while the pistil is well devel- 
oped, I am led to suspect that the difference may be attributable to sex, and that the 
flowers may be more or less polygamous, as in Aglaia , &c. ; which is the more 
probable, inasmuch as these occur on a specimen which bears, on a lower and earlier 
inflorescence, some nearly mature fruit. It was apparently these decandrous blos- 
soms that misled Mr. Kich, the Botanist on the Expedition, preventing him from 
recognizing the plant which he had previously marked as a probable relative of 
Ccinella , # while these specimens 'were ticketed and even figured as a Sty rax. The 
drawing of the plant was accompanied by some erroneous analyses, in which I had 
failed to identify the Vavcea, and therefore had left the specimens among other Styra- 
cacece without examination until now. 
The fruit of Vavcea proves to be a berry, as was anticipated from the fertilized and 
half-grown ovary. It is rather dry, four or five lines in diameter, subtended by the 
small persistent calyx, and three-celled or four-celled by thin dissepiments, which per- 
haps are obliterated when only one seed matures. A single seed is sometimes matured 
in each cell ; and in one instance both ovules were fertilized in the same cell. The 
seeds are oval, about three lines long, smooth, destitute of any arillus, ascending 
from near the base of the cell, closely sessile ; the linear hilum being attached directly 
to the axis of the fruit without any funiculus : the testa chartaceous, or perhaps some- 
what fleshy, its whole base occupied by a large orbicular chalaza, which is connected 
with the hilum by an extremely short rhaphe. The hilum extends from near the 
base to about the middle of the seed. There is a rather fleshy inner integument of 
the seed, but no albumen. The embryo consists of a pair of orbicular-oval, plane, 
flat or plano-convex, fleshy, peltate cotyledons, which are cordate by a narrow and 
deep sinus : the radicle is superior, remote from the hilum, slender, but wholly re- 
tracted and concealed within the sinus. 
The carpological characters, therefore, manifestly confirm the suggested relationship 
of this genus to the Meliacece , where the exalbuminous embryo assigns it to the tribe 
Trichiliece. 
Simple and undivided leaves occur, as is well known, in three genuine Meliaceous 
genera. The cup-shaped disc is partially united with the andrcecium in Trichilia , Eke- 
* Botany of United States Exploring Expedition, 1. c. p. 246. 
