Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/584

570 appears more probably, both from the description and figure of that author, to be also a species of Exocarpus.

There is so great a resemblance between the enlarged fleshy receptacle of Exocarpus and the berry of Taxus, that some botanists have been led to compare these plants together in other respects. A complete coincidence in this part of their structure would not indeed prove the affinity of these two genera, any more than it does that of Exocarpus to Anacardium or Semecarpus, with which also it has been compared; and to determine their agreement even in this respect it is necessary to understand the origin of the berry of Taxus, of which very different accounts have been given. According to Lamarck it consists of the enlarged ovarium itself, perforated by the seed soon after impregnation; while Mirbel considers it as formed of the scales of the female amentum, immediately surrounding the organ, named by him cupula; and considered as containing the pistillum, but which most other authors have regarded as the pistillum itself. My observations differ from both these accounts, for on examining the female fructification of Taxus before impregnation I find the rudiments of the future berry, consisting at that period of a narrow fleshy ring, surrounding the base only of the cupula of Mirbel, and very similar to the annular hypogynous nectarium of many flowers. If this cupula therefore were the pistillum itself, the berry of Taxus would have an origin analogous to that of Balanites, as it has been very lately described by Mirbel; and on the other hand, if that author's view of the female fructification of Taxus, and Coniferæ generally, be adopted, it might then to a certain degree be compared with the external cupula of Dacrydium, which will be more particularly noticed hereafter; but from this it would still be very distinct both in its texture and in its not inclosing, in the early stage the cupula, on neither supposition, however, does its origin agree with that of the berry of Exocarpus, which in some respects more nearly resembles the fleshy receptacle of Podocarpus.

I have annexed Olax to Santalaceæ, not however considering it as absolutely belonging to the same family, but as agreeing with it in some