connecting Rhizophora on the one hand with certain genera of Salicariæ, particularly with Antherylium, thongh that genus wants the intermediate stipules; and on the other with Cunoniaceæ,[1] especially with the simple leaved species of 438] Ceratopelatum. While Loranthus and Viscum, associated with Rhizophora by M. de Jussieu, appear to form a very distinct family, and which, as it seems to me, should even occupy a distant place in the system.
HOMALINÆ. In the collection from Congo a plant occurs evidently allied, and perhaps referable, to Homalium, from which it differs only in the greater number of glands alternating with the stamina, whose fasciculi are in consequence decomposed: the inner stamen of each fasciculus being separated from the two outer by one of the additional glands. This plant was first found on the banks of the Gambia, by Mr. Park, from whose specimens I have ascertained that the embryo is enclosed in a fleshy albumen.
The same structure of seed may be supposed, from very obvious affinity, to exist in Astranthus of Loureiro, to which Blackwellia of Commerson ought perhaps to be referred; in Napinoga of Aublet, probably not different from Homalium; and in Nisa,[2] a genus admitting of subdivision, and which M. du Petit Thouars has referred to Rhamneæ. All these genera appear to me sufficiently different from Rosaceæ, where M. de Jussieu has placed them, and from every other family of plants at present established.
Their distinguishing characters as a separate order are, the segments of the perianthium disposed in a double series, or an equal number of segments nearly in the same series; the want of petals; the stamina being definite and opposite to the inner series of the perianthium, or to the alternate segments where they are disposed apparently in a simple series; the unilocular ovarium (generally in some degree coherent with the calyx) having three parietal placentæ, with one, two, or even an indefinite number of ovula; and the seeds having albumen, as inferred from its existence in the genus from Congo. The cohesion of the ovarium with
