Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/201

 two special difficulties are encountered ; the one is due to the obscurities, above stated, which surround De Candolle's type; the other is presented by the genus Phcsanth'is of Hook. fil. and Thomson (Flora Indica p. 146). Phasanthus cannot be discriminated from Miliusa, whether Saccopetalum be merged in Miliusa, or accepted, save by the structure of the staminary whorl; but Baillon (Adansonia viii 1868, pp. 312 et seq.)—has given reasons for thinking that this character does not in fact possess the value formerly assigned to it, and Phceanthus is so nearly akin to the type of Saccopetalum in habit, in the structure of the outer floral whorls, and of the ovary, that this genus also should perhaps be reduced to Miliusa.

The arrangement of the highly natural but difficult family of the Anonaceae might possibly be simplified, if, instead of attempting to distinguish between 'sepals', and 'petals', the floral envelope were treated, for taxonomic purposes, as a single perianth, consisting of subsidiary, sometimes sharply differentiated, whorls.

In the subjoined description, for the sake of convenience, the accepted characterization of the perianth whorls has been followed the species placed under Plueanthus of Hooker and Thomson have, for the same reason, been excluded.

Genus Anonacearum imprimis ex-indicatione Leschenaultuab Alph, Candolles in Mem. Soc. Phys. et Hist. Nat. Genev. vol. V (1832) p. 37, t. iii supra speciem unicam Indicam constitutum, nunc propter plures species nuper recognitas iterum ut sequitur breviter descriptum.

Flores hermaphroditi vel unisexuales, in cymis, vel fasciculis dispositi, aut in axillis solitarii. Sepala tria, inconspicua, basi vis connata. Petala, aestivatione valvata, per duo verticillos valde dissimilos disposita, exteriora parva sepaloidea, nonnunquam refracta, interiora majora, vix androecium celantia, membranacea vel hyalina, nee unguiculata, nee ad apicem producta, versus basin concava vel saccata, rarius explanata, margin ibus plus minus colnurentibus, raris-sime discretis.

Torus productus subglobosus vel cylindricus, spice aliquando truncato. Stamina 8-12, aut ad 36 in gradibus disposita, ver indefinita antheroc subdidyinaj, loculis contiguis ovatis vei rotundatis, extrorsae, saepius minutaT; filamenta manifesta, attenuata, vel connectivo incrassato, plus minus apiculato, vix superne dilitato. Carpella numero indefinita stipitata, matura forma oblonga, ellipsoidea, vel globosa, parum succulenta, indehiseentia, in pseudocarpum nunquam coalita:—ovula in venterali sutura (an semper?) affixa« saepissims bina (rarius unico per abortuin superstite), vel indefinita:—