Loureiro, a genus which is certainly not monandrous, as that author affirms, but has four connected filaments with distinct unilocular antheræ, and consequently half the number of stamina usually found in the order. Most of the Comespermæ exist in the principal parallel, and equally at both its extremities; several, however, are found beyond it; and in both directions; the genus extending from Arnhem's Land to Adventure Bay. The greater part of the Polygalæ and the genus Salomonia exist only within the tropic.
TREMANDREÆ.[1] The genus Tetratheca of Dr. Smith and one very nearly related to it, which I shall hereafter publish under the name of Tremandra, constitute a small tribe of plants peculiar to Terra Australis. For this tribe I prefer the name Tremandreæ to that of Tetrathecaceæ, as it is more distinctly, and at the same time more correctly descriptive of the structure of stamina in both genera; the four distinct cells in the ripe state of the antheræ not existing in Tremandra, nor even in all the species of Tetratheca. In the quadrilocular antheræ of the latter genus there is indeed nothing peculiar, that being the original structure of all those antheræ which are commonly described as bilocular; and the difference in this case depending on the mode of bursting, which when lateral, necessarily obliterates two of the septa, but when terminal, as in Tetratheca, admits of their persistence. It is remarkable that both Dr. Smith and Labillardiere have mistaken the fungous appendix of the apex of the seed for an umbilical Caruncula, a mistake involving a second, that of considering the seeds erect in the capsule, and which has led Labillardiere into a third error, namely, describing the radicule of the embryo as pointing towards this supposed umbilical appendix.
- ↑ Tremandreæ. Calyx 4-5-ph. æqualis, æstivatione valvata. Petala 4-5, æqualia: æstivatione involuta stamina includentia. Stamina 8-10, hypogyna, distincta: Antheræ 2-4-loculares, basi insertæ, poro tubulove apicis dehiscentes. Ovarium 2-loc. loculis 1-3-spermis, ovulis pendulis: Stylus 1: Stigmata 1-2. Capsula bilocularis, bivalvis, valvis medio septigeris. Semina umbilico nudo: extremitate opposita appendiculata; albuminosa. Embryo in axi albuminis carnosi cujus dimidio longior: radicula umbilicum spectante. Fruticuli ericoides. Folia sparsa vel verticillata, exstipulata. Pedunculi axillares, uniflori.
