280 Miscellaneous. de leur ailes forme une sorte de pouche pres du carpe " (should be elbow). " C'est ce qui avait fait nommer par lUiger Saccopteryx, celui de ces genres qui comprend les Taphiens." J. E. Gray. ON THE OFFICINAL SPECIES OF PEPPER. By M. MlQUEL. Miquel, like Jussieu, De Candolle and Endlicher, places the Pipe-racecB among the Dicotyledons, as the embryo in germination exhi-bits two regular seed-lobes, which are uncommonly small, and so difficult to discover while the embryo in tlie ripe seed is enclosed in the permanent embryo-sac, half sunk in the apex of the albumen, that very recently this was regarded as the only cotyledon. The Piperacece belong to the imperfect Dicotyledons, and stand best among Endlicher's lulijiores, somewhere near the Setulacea, and in the vicinity of the l/rticacece, with which indeed Jussieu united them. The family is evidently quite tropical, the species being dispersed universally over the torrid zone of the earth ; the indivi-duals are most abundant in the hot parts of America, and propor-tionally rare in tropical Africa. The American are almost all gene-rically, or, with the exception of one truly cosmopolitan species, at least specifically different from those of the Old World. Miquel divides the Piperacece into two tribes, the first of which, Piperomiece, comprehends the herbaceous with axillary catkins, an-drogynous flowers and anthers one-celled in dehiscence. They are, with very few exceptions, American, and none are employed offi-cinally. The second tribe, PiperecE, contains the shrubby and arborescent sjiecies. Their catkins are situated opposite the leaves ; flowers mostly dioecious, the female exhibiting several distinct stigmas, the males with two-celled anthers. To the first division, characterized by permanent stipulae and numerous sessile catkins, belong the genus Pothomoyphe, Miq., of which many species, especially Pothomorphe umbellata, Miq., have pungent aromatic roots, which, under the name of Caapeba, are used in Brazil as stomachics and sudorifics. The root of Macropiper methysticitm, Miq., possesses similar qua-lities. It is used in the South Sea islands in the preparation of an intoxicating drink (highly pernicious in its eff"ects), called Awa or Kawa, and has lately been made use of in medicine in England under the name of Radix Aivce. Of the true Piperece, which are separated from the preceding division by deciduous stipulae and solitary catkins, two genera in this first volume are to be noticed here: — Chavica, Miq. and Cti' beba, Miq. I. Genus Chavica, Miq. — Flowers dioecious. Bracts of the male like those of the female catkins, shortly stalked, almost four-angled, shield-shaped. (^ Stamens 2, with two-celled anthers. ? Style very short or wanting. In the latter case the 3-6 thick stigmas are immediately sessile on the ovate ovarium. The berries unite with the permanent bracteae and the thickened axis of the catkins into a fleshy fusiform fruit. Seeds longish or almost lenticular, with scaly,
BioStor
