Voacanga. | LXXXIV, APOCYNACEE (STAPF). 151 
27. VOACANGA, Thouars, Nov. Gen. Madag. 10. 
Calyx tubular or subcampanulate, 5-lobed, early circumscissile at the 
base and deciduous, or more persistent, tardily circumscissile or splitting 
longitudinally, with a ring or zone of, often numerous, small glands at 
or above the base; lobes obtuse, imbricate. Corolla salver-shaped ; 
tube staminiferous above the middle, constricted below the stamens and 
at the mouth, with callous thickenings round the often very narrow 
orifice, more or less twisted from left to right, very rarely straight, 
with prominent filamental ridges; lobes broad, obtuse, as long as 
or longer than the tube and more or less spreading, rarely much 
shorter and tightly reflexed, tips not inflexed in bud. Anthers sessile, 
adnate by a broad base to the corolla-tube, deeply sagittate; tips subu- 
late, usually more or less exserted, or reaching close to the mouth ; 
basal tails horny, slender, solid. Disc usually annular, very fleshy, 
surrounding the base of the ovary, or cupular and concealing the 
ovary, very rarely reduced to an inconspicuous ring, more or less con- 
fluent with the base of the ovary. Carpels 2, semi-ovoid or semi-glo- 
bose, free, very rarely connate to the middle; style columnar, thickened 
upwards; stigma subcapitate, 5-grooved with a fleshy wavy ring or 
frill at the base ; ovules multiseriate, very numerous on bifid placentas. 
Mericarps baccate, globose or pear-shaped, more or less oblique, some- 
times with short, recurved beaks, sometimes very tardily dehiscing 
along the ventral suture; pericarp thick and fleshy or thinner and 
coriaceous when dry. Seeds numerous, embedded in a pulpy mass, 
oblong-ellipsoid, deeply grooved ventrally ; testa crustaceous, more or 
less grooved longitudinally, often coarsely honeycombed by transverse 
partitions across the grooves, more or less intruding into the endosperm ; 
endosperm fleshy ; cotyledons foliaceous, thin, ventrally concave, shorter 
than the radicle.—Shrubs or trees, dichotomously branched ; leaf-buds 
sometimes coated with resin. Leaves opposite, herbaceous to coriaceous ; 
axillary stipules distinct, like those of Cunopharyngia (in the first two 
species) or quite obscure or 0; leaf-bases united into a rim or very short 
sheath ; axillary glands small, numerous. Flowers large to rather small, 
in terminal, frequently paired, peduncled, racemiform, umbelliform or 
corymbose inflorescences, usually from the young branch-forks, Corollas 
white, yellow or greenish, or the limb violet-brown.— 7'abernemontana, 
Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 706 partly. 
Species 12 in tropical Africa, Natal, and the Mascarene Islands, and about 4 in 
the Malay Archipelago. 
This description excludes those Malayan species, referred to Toacanga by recent 
authors, which have the corolla-tube much prolonged beyond the stamens. They 
might better be joined to the genus Orchipeda, under which some of them were 
originally described by Blume. 
Flowers large (limb 2 in. or more in diam.), white, in 
few-flowered, racemiform or umbelliform, very 
robust inflorescences; calyx wide-tubular; lobes 
short, eariy circumscissile ; disc cupular, excveding 
the ovary. 
