THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
921 
mately die of starvation. The same course is pursued by 
them with their horses and ponies when affected with 
g-landers and farcy, and the owners of horses must often 
regret that the law here permits proceedings of so in¬ 
famous a nature to be carried on in broad daylight without 
punishment. 
( To be continued .) 
THE PRINCIPLES OP BOTANY. 
By Professor James Buckman, F.G.S., F.L.S., &c. &c. 
(Continued from p. 819.) 
Passing over the Garryads as containing a small list of, 
to us, unimportant plants, we now direct attention to the 
menispermal alliance, of which the following is the 
diagnosis: 
Menispermales.— Declinous exogens, with monodichlamy- 
deous flowers , superior disunited carpels , and an embryo sur¬ 
rounded by abundant albumen , 
This alliance contains, according to Bindley, six natural 
orders, including an extended list of genera and species; 
we shall, however, only direct attention to the two fol¬ 
lowing : 
Myristaceje— Nutmegs . 
Menispermace^e— Menispermads. 
Professor Bindley places the nutmegs in the alliance to 
which we have referred it, remarking as follows :— f<r It seems 
impossible to disjoin nutmegs from the menispermal alliance, 
because of their strictly unisexual flowers ; the diverging 
cotyledons of their embryo bring them up to Monimiads, 
while the ruminated albumen finds its parallel in the genus 
Anomospermum in Menispermads.”— Veg. Kingdom, p. 801. 
It is this “ ruminated albumen” which forms the oval¬ 
shaped nutmeg, which is brown and wrinkled externally, 
and internally marked with black and whitish veins. 
The whole mass of this seed is highly aromatic, and forms 
the well-known spice to which the name of nutmeg has been 
given. At the same time we must notice the expansion of 
the funiculus, to which the name aril or arrillode has been 
given. This, too, is a spice differing much in flavour and 
appearance from the nutmeg, and is known under the name 
of mace. It is of a brightish colour, and forms, as it were, a 
