584 
Prain.—A Review of the Genera 
same variability is met with among the species of Micrococca which were 
not known to Hooker. In C. Holstii the male flowers are at the tips of 
minute bracteolate spikelets as in C. oligandrum , in C. capense they are in 
glomerules as in Micrococca Mercurialis itself. The two remaining species 
are interesting because they are intermediate ; C. Volkensii has the flowers 
towards the upper part of the raceme glomerulate as in C. Wightii , those 
lower down on spikelets as in C. oligandrum , while C. Humhlotianum has 
the male flowers glomerulate above, but towards the base of the rachis has 
them on short secondary branches with scattered and not imbricating 
bracteoles. Here again, then, in spite of its striking nature, the character 
is only of specific value. 
There is, moreover, no definite association between the presence or 
absence of interstaminal glands and the development or suppression of these 
spikelets. Of the four Micrococcas which have interstaminal glands three 
(.Micrococca Mercurialis , C. Wightii, and C. hirsutum ) have glomerules, the 
fourth (C. oligandrum ) has spikelets; of the five which have naked recep¬ 
tacles, one (C. capense) has glomerules only, two (C. Beddomei and C. Holstii) 
have spikelets, the remaining two (C. Volkensii and C. Humhlotianum) have 
both glomerules and either spikelets or short secondary branches. 
The conclusion that none of the species enumerated above can be 
included in the section Euclaoxylon is one that does not admit of doubt. 
Equally free from doubt is the conclusion, for which we are indebted to 
Hooker, that they belong to Micrococca. The same certainty, however, 
does not attend Hookers further conclusion that the transfer of these species 
to Micrococca ‘ requires the suppression of the latter genus 5 (Flor. Brit. Ind., 
v. 410). 1 The necessity for this transfer has indeed shown that the 
characters on which Bentham relied in separating Micrococca from Claoxylon 
and on which Mueller depended in establishing his section of the same 
name are not diagnostic. But the fact that their significance was overlooked 
by Bentham and Mueller does not affect the existence of the important 
character derived from the nature of the hypogynous disc which we owe to 
1 It is a curious fact, and one that is not without a certain degree of interest, that, since 1880, 
no British botanist has accepted Bentham’s opinion that Micrococca is, after all, a valid genus, while 
during the same period every Continental botanist has followed Bentham. It is, however, a fact 
that admits of simple explanation. In 1887 Hooker made the important discovery that Micrococca 
is not, as Bentham believed, a monotypic genus; whereas in 1900, when the account of the 
Euphorbiaceae in the Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien appeared, Pax overlooked this discovery, and 
felt justified in accepting, without question, the conclusion at which Bentham had arrived ten years 
earlier. If Hooker has been followed by Trimen (Handb. Flor. Ceyl., iv. 63), by Hiern (Cat. Afr. PI. 
Welw., 976), by Cooke (Flor. Bomb. Pres., ii. 609), and by the writer (Beng. Ph, 947), it must be 
admitted that none of us have added anything to what Hooker did. If Pax has been followed by 
Schweinfurth (Bull. Herb. Boiss., vii, App. 2, 306), by De Wildeman (Miss. Laurent., i. 129) and by 
Durand (Syll. Flor. Cong., 492), it must be equally admitted that none of these have added anything to 
what was already done by Pax. The acceptance or otherwise of Bentham’s view has therefore been 
the result of accident, except in the case of Hooker to whom we are deeply indebted for having 
thrown a flood of light on an obscure and difficult question. 
