6oo 
Prain .— A Review of the Genera 
the ‘ pairs however, remaining perfectly distinct. The interstaminal glands 
throughout the genus are remarkably uniform ; they are rhomboid and trun¬ 
cate or subtruncate at the apex where the viscid long hairs arise, and show 
no clear indication of their staminodial character. The chief deviation from 
this shape is in E. zanibesiaca and E. natalensis , where the glands are 
flattened, suborbicular, and fringed with marginal short hairs; here, again, 
there is no indication that the glands are modified stamens. But there is 
another deviation from the rhomboid form which, though less marked, is 
more interesting. A few species in various sections, such as E. rigidifolia 
in Adenoclaoxylon , E. Menyharthii in Trichogyne , E. polyandra in Pseud - 
athroandra , and E. Moileri in CJtloropatane , have glands that are ovoid 
instead of rhomboid, and are then glabrous or nearly so. In the cases 
of E. rigidifolia , E. polyandra , and E. Moileri, where the glands are all 
interstaminal, they are not all sessile; some of the glands are distinctly 
stipitate and have all the appearance of being rudimentary stamens. In 
the case of E. Menyharthii , Brown has, indeed, interpreted the glands, 
which are all extrastaminal, as staminodes (Kew Bull., 1909, 141). 
The word ‘ disc ’, in connexion with the female flower, has the sanction of 
general use and common consent; it is, however, doubtful if the term be more 
satisfactory there than it is in the case of the male. The hypogynous 
scales of which this ‘disc’ is composed in the sub-genus Etierythrococca are 
invariably discrete, but in Athroandra either are so large as to be con¬ 
tiguous under the base of the ovary or are connate in a lobed, rarely 
a subentire, shallow cup. The Euerythrococca arrangement is that which 
is met with in the genus Micrococca , and Hooker has entered a plea for 
caution in connexion with this group (Flor. Brit. Ind., v. 410), which deserves 
careful attention. Hooker has, indeed, tentatively suggested that the scales 
may perhaps be petals; their usual appearance and the circumstance that, 
as a rule, they alternate with the calyx-segments lend support to this view. 
But it has to be noted that they also alternate with the carpels, 1 and 
although, as a rule, the carpels are isomerous with and opposite to the 
calyx-segments, cases are by no means rare in which the carpels are fewer 
than the calyx-segments. When the number of carpels is thus reduced, 
there is a corresponding reduction in the number of hypogynous scales ; this 
is not what might be anticipated, as an invariable occurrence, had the scales 
been modified petals. There is thus room for an alternative suggestion ; 
1 An indication that this interpretation is not wholly satisfactory is afforded by the arrangement 
met with in Claoxylon § Discoclaoxylon, Muell. arg. In this case the female calyx, like the male 
calyx, is uniformly 4-partite. The ovary is always 2-locular; the disc consists of two very large, 
fleshy, reniform scales, alternate with the carpels and prolonged under the base of the ovary so that 
their edges are contiguous both in front and behind, as in the species of Athroandra § Hemierythro- 
cocca. In Discoclaoxylon , however, while the carpels are exactly opposite the anterior and the 
posterior calyx-lobes, the hypogynous scales, instead of alternating with a pair of calyx-lobes, are 
opposite the two calyx-lobes which constitute the lateral pair. 
