Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 2.djvu/157

ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY.

79 D. Ovary 2-4-celled ; fruit 2-4 nuts (pyrens); stigma bilamellate. Sperm acocEjE.

a. Flowers and fruit sessile, densely aggregated on a globular receptacle. Cephalantheae.

b. Flowers not sessile, on a globular receptacle, fruit dry, 2-4-partible. Euspermacoceae. e. Fruit somewhat fleshy, not partible. PutorieaB.

§ 3. Ovary 1-celled, with a single ovule.

A. Fruit adhering, laterally capitulate, afterwards dehiscing, 2-valved. Opercularieae.

B. Fruit dry, indehiscent (winged with the persistent lobes of the calyx). Jackiaceae.

N. B. Opercularieas have not, so far as I am aware, been found in any part of India, and Jackia has only been found in the Eastern Islands, they are therefore introduced merely as examples of the 3d section.

The Flora of India and the neighbouring Islands furnishes representatives of all these divisions and sub-divisions, except Cephalidece and Opercularieae. Stellatae, for the reasons given above, I have excluded. They are, however, easily known by their verticelled leaves, bi-partible fruit and capitate stigmas. Hamelieae is scarcely known in the Continental Flora, I have how- ever one species forming the type of a new genus. (This I have dedicated to Mr. Law, of the Bombay Civil Service, an honour well merited, by his assiduity in investigating the Flora of that portion of India, amidst the interruptions unavoidably incident to one in his situation.) Two or three species of Aooanthus are natives of Ceylon, and several others of Malacca, where Urophyllum is also indigenous. Pcederiece are rare in India, but Pcederia fcetida is occasionally met with in gardens in the South of India, and is a native of Bengal. From Assam I have specimens of a species Lygodysodea, a genus first discovered in South America.

Of the genera described in our Prodromus, I suspect two, Griffithia and Grumilea, must ultimately be reduced; and our Santia I have already (Calcutta Journal of Nat. History) referred to Lasianthus. Jack. Mephitidia, D. C, Griffithia, it now appears to me, can scarcely be kept distinct from Randia, the points of separation between these genera appearing of speci- fic or possibly sectional, rather than generic value. As, however, it has been adopted by all subsequent writers, it is not my intention to disturb their decision. With regard to Grumilea, it appears that, in a practical point of view, the distinction between it and Psychotria is of very secondary value, whatever it may be in a physiological, not being supported by habit or any available difference by which a herbarium specimen, not provided with ripe fruit, can be distinguished. The only difference between the two genera is, Grumelia having ruminated albumen while Psychotria has plain. If both genera are to be maintained, I suspect many of the present species of Psychotria will, in course of time, change their name, at least several of those in my Herbarium were, in the course of a recent ex- amination, so transferred, though, judging from general appearances and characters, I should never have suspected them to be Grumelias, and, but for the circumstance of my specimens being furnished with seed sufficiently mature to enable me to determine the point by dissection, could not have discovered that they were so.

In the accompanying plates, five of the above Tribes have been illustrated, not quite so neatly as I could have wished, a defect originating in the then deficient skill of the workmen employed, but which subsequent practice has done much to remedy. I therefore trust that, for the future, the plates will be better calculated to please the eye, as well as more instructive, by their more comprehensive analyses.

Since 1841, when the preceding part was published, many additions have been made to the Order, most of which are published in my Icones, to which I beg leave to refer for both figures and characters.

1. Nauclea parviflora. 8. Mature fruit cut transversely.

Flowering branch, natural size. 9. Detached capsule, showing its mode of dehiscence

2. Detached flower. from the base.

3. Corolla split open. 10. Capsule cut vertically.

4. Anthers, back and front. 11. Seed as seen after the separation of the capsule.

5. Ovary and calyx, with the style and stigma. 12. Detached seed.

6. Ovary cut transversely (not good). All more or less magnified.

7. Mature fruit detached.