Page:Miscellaneousbot01brow.djvu/144

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126
BOTANY OF CONGO.

a genus nearly related to it from India with capsular fruit, and Tapura of Aublet (which is Rohria of Schreber), form a natural order, very different from any yet established. The principal characters of this order may be gathered from M. de Candolle's figure and description of Chailletia, to which, however, must be added that the cells of the ovarium, either two or three in number, constantly contain two collateral pendulous ovula; and that in the regular flowered genera there exist within, and opposite to, the petal-like bodies an equal number of glands, which are described by M. du Petit Thouars in Dichapetalum, but are unnoticed by him in Leucosia, where, however, they are equally present.

It may seem paradoxical to associate with these genera Tapura, whose flower is irregular, triandrous, and apparently monopetalous. But it will somewhat lessen their apparent differences of structure to consider the petal-like bodies, which, in all the genera of this order, are inserted nearly or absolutely in the same series with the filaments, as being barren stamina; a view which M. de Candolle has taken of those of Chailletia, and which M. Richard had long before published respecting Tapura.[1] It is probable also that M. de Candolle at least will admit the association here proposed, as his Chailletia sessiliflora seems to be merely an imperfect specimen of Tapura guianensis.

The genera to which Chailleteæ most nearly approach appear to me to be Aquilaria of Lamarck[2] and Gyrinops of Gærtner. But these two genera themselves, which are not referable to any order yet established, may either be regarded as a distinct family, or perhaps, to avoid the too great multiplication of families, as a section of that at present 441] under consideration, and to which I should then propose to apply the name of Aquilarinæ in preference to Chailleteæ.

The genus Aquilaria itself has been referred by Ventenat to Samydeæ. From this order, however, it is sufficiently

  1. Dict. Elem. de Botanique par Bulliard, revu par L. C. Richard, ed. 1802, p. 34.
  2. Or Ophiospermum of the Flora Cochinchinensis, as I have proved by comparison with a specimen from Loureiro himself.