376 
REVIEWS. 
their first general synopsis of the genera of the Order, they were in¬ 
duced to consolidate a few of these, as well as several similar ones, 
proposed by other botanists—and at length the careful examination 
of all the species made them hesitate about the distinctness of several 
more, which they had retained in their first general review. A still 
further consolidation has, in some instances, been proposed by Ben- 
tham and Hooker, in their Genera Plantarum, where they have in all 
essential particulars confirmed and adopted the views of Messrs. 
Planchon and Triana. 
The striking peculiarity of Guttiferse being the great diversity of 
structure in a very natural group, “ variety in unity,” as our authors 
express it, the difficulty of dividing it into tribes and genera was 
not, as in many other cases, to find characters, but to select them, and 
in this Messrs. Planchon and Triana have been eminently successful; 
they reject, as secondary, the placentation of the ovary and the 
nature of the fruit (as to consistence, dehiscence, &c.) and place still 
lower down the estivation of the floral envelopes and structure of the 
androecium, giving primary importance to the structure of the seed. 
It had long been known that the embryo of many Guttiferse ap¬ 
peared in the form of a thick, hard, fleshy homogeneous mass, 
traversed, in some instances, by a linear distinct portion of a looser 
texture; on the other hand, two large fleshy, more or less distinct 
cotyledons had been observed in Calophyllese; and in two different 
species of Clusia, two minute but distinct cotyledons at one end of 
the homogeneous mass had been pointed out by L. C. Bichard and 
by Turpin, but overlooked by most subsequent authors. This gave 
rise to much discussion, whether the ordinary embryo of the Order 
must be considered as composed of two consolidated cotyledons, or 
of an albumen with a slender central embryo, or of an albuminous 
development of a ceutral radicle, with minute or wholly aborted 
cotyledons. Dr. Planchon has shown that all these explanations are 
wrong if applied to all Guttiferse, as there are, in fact, three distinct 
types of embryo, lstly, An enormous apparently homogeneous 
radicle (rostellum, tigellus, or caulicle, of modern refined terminolo- 
gists), with two small but distinct cotyledons at one end, and de¬ 
veloping the root from the other end; 2ndly, An equally large 
radicle, traversed by a central pith, the cotyledons wholly aborted 
or so rudimentary as to be rather imagined than seen ; and 3rdly, Two 
large fleshy cotyledons, with an exceedingly small radicle.* These 
are taken as the essential characters of the three principal tribes, 
ClusiesB, Garciniese, and Calophyllese. A few species, with a peculiar 
habit and style, are distinguished from Garciniese as a fourth tribe, 
under the name of Moronobese, and the anomalous genus Quiina is 
* By some oversight, the detailed observations on the structure of the seed of 
the Calophyllese are omitted in Messrs. Planchon and Triana’s Memoir. In p. 220 
we are referred to the organographic part, where, p. 327, three types of Guttiferous 
embryos are spoken of, but only two described. 
