pendula, magna, plumbea nitore metallico, compressa, rugosa, ad hilum gib- 
bosa; testa exterior crassa suberoso-coriacea, fibrosa, interior coriaced, alba, 
apice depressa hine spilo discolore et funiculo tenui atriore teste exterior 
quasi affixa, basi lutea funiculo albo diaphano ad hilum verso. Embryo ovatus 
albus crassus compressus carnosus; cotyledones integre, apice obtusissime, 
basi leviter sagittate ; radicula depresso-conica, crassa, hilo proxima. 
For this handsome annual species of Martynia, we 
are indebted to the Honourable and Reverend William 
Herbert, who communicated specimens in flower in 
August last, and by whom it was raised from seeds received 
from the Brazils. It probably requires the treatment 
applicable to other half-tender annuals. 
The station to be assigned to Martynia, in a natural 
arrangement, has been fixed’ by the. illustrious de Jussieu 
in the 3d section of his Bignoniz, and it has been suffered 
to remain in nearly the same place, by succeeding Botanists. — 
To this arrangement, it may be perhaps considered that 
there is no material objection to offer; but there are some 
points connected with the structure of Martynia, to which 
it is our wish to call attention, whether they be considered 
confirmatory of its present station or not. In the first 
place, its capsule has been, we believe always, described as 
4-locular; a character which Martynia has been supposed 
to possess in common with certain undoubted Bignoniacee, 
rightly, however, designated as pseudo-4-locular, by 
Mr. Brown. But upon a careful examination of the ova- 
rium, it will be found that the fruit, in that stage, 18 
neither 4-celled, nor even 2-celled, but consists of only one 
cell, traversed by two projecting, parietal placente, each 
of which is two-lobed; the lobes dividing at right angles, 
from their point of separation, and bearing on their edges 
a few horizontal ovula, of which part project into the ope? 
centre of the ovarium, and the others into the cavity 
between the placenta and the lining of the ovarium. Now — 
the capsule differs from the ovyarium in no essential point 
of structure; but the following changes take place: the 
pericarpium and the placentas become woody and rigid; 
the inner faces of the latter become pressed together, so as 
to destroy the oyula which were placed between ‘them, 
and to exhibit the appearance of a bilamellar dissepiment, 
and. the remaining oyula become pendulous, and reduced 
, 
