334 
NOTE ON VAVJEA AND RHYTIDANDRA. 
between them through the Ebenacece , — should at the same time ignore any affinity 
between the Meliacece and his Styracece, especially while the latter family is made 
to include Pamphilia and Foveolaria. 
Rhytidandra * is a genus established on a specimen of a shrub or arborescent plant, 
with unexpanded flowers only, in the collection of the United States Exploring Expe- 
dition, from one of the Feejee Islands. It was referred to the Olacacece ; but with some 
misgiving, on account of the complete and immediate adhesion of the calyx to the 
surface of the ovary ; which, moreover, is strictly one-ceiled, and with a single ovule 
suspended from the very apex of the cell, without the intervention of any placental 
column or any trace of sterile cells. I had remarked, that, “ if rightly referred to this 
order, it must be viewed as a genus whose affinity tends towards Styracacecp rather than 
Scmtalacece .” f This floral structure should have led me at once to consider the relations 
of the plant to Alangium and Marlea ; but, possessing no materials of, and no previous 
acquaintance with, the Alangiece , I overlooked what I now perceive to be the nearest 
affinity of ffliytidanclra. 
The leaves of this plant, with their transverse veinlets and oblique base ; the axillary 
cymose inflorescence; the adnate and scarcely toothed calyx; the long and narrow 
petals, borne, like the stamens, on the margin of an epigynous disc ; the linear and 
introrsely adnate anthers ; the bearded filaments, such as they are (for they are ex- 
tremely short) ; the solitary and suspended anatropous ovule ; and the elongated style, 
are all points of perfect agreement with th e Alangiece, 
6. “ A solitary one-celled putamen having a single erect seed ” would commonly exclude Pterostyrax and 
Halesia , and does not well apply to Styrax ; the albumen is equally “copious and fleshy” in Symplocos ; 
and the embryo of Halesia appears to be quite intermediate between that of the Symplocinece and that of 
Styrax , some species of which exhibit little or no stellate pubescence. The petals in both species of Halesia , 
although in some blossoms perhaps merely “ agglutinated at the base by the membranaceous ring of the 
stamens,” in others are truly “ confluent into a gamophyllous tube ” far above the attachment of the an- 
droecium, the ring of which, moreover, is sometimes but imperfectly adnate to the base of a gamopetalous 
corolla. 
The Humiriacece are well marked by one or two decisive technical characters ; but nothing appeal’s to 
forbid their annexation to the Styracacece while that family includes the Symplocinece. 
* Botany of the United States Exploring Expedition under Captain Wilkes : Phanerogamia, p. 302, t. 28. 
f It should be stated that Mr. Miers, who has, perhaps, a more profound and extensive acquaintance with 
the Olacacece and their immediate allies than any other botanist, and who has most ably illustrated them, 
on reading the published characters of Rhytidandra , immediately expressed to me, in a letter, his opinion 
that the genus belonged neither to his Icacinece nor Olacinece. He suggested, instead, an affinity with the 
Lorantliacece. 
