ZGombiana. | XCIX. MYOPORINEE (ROLFE). 263 
cent ; exocarp fleshy, succulent or rarely dry; endocarp hard or thin, 
2-celled or the cells as numerous as the seeds, rarely breaking up into 
pyrenes. Seeds 2-10, usually solitary, in cells arranged in one series 
round the axis, very rarely superposed (the upper ovules being generally 
abortive), pendulous, oblong ; testa membranous or somewhat thickened ; 
albumen fleshy, slender, or nearly absent. Embryo straight or slightly 
curved ; radicle terete, superior ; cotyledons semiterete, slightly broader 
and shorter (rarely longer) than the radicle—Erect or diffuse shrubs or 
rarely trees, glabrous, tomentose, canescent, lepidote, or pubescent. 
Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, entire or rarely dentate, exsti- 
pulate. Flowers axillary, solitary or fascicled, subsessile or pedicellate. 
Bracts small or absent. 
A small Order of about 6 genera and 80 species, mostly Australian, with a few 
Polynesian representatives, ranging from the Sandwich Islands to Mauritius; two 
others in China and Japan, one in the West Indies, two in Scuth Africa, and the follow- 
ing Tropical African monotype, whose systematic position, however, is somewhat 
doubtful. 
1. ZOMBIANA, Baill. Hist. des Pl. ix. 420. 
Sepals 5, narrowly linear, united only at the base. Corolla-tube 
narrowly campanulate ; limb somewhat 2-lobed, with 5 imbricate lotes. 
Stamens didynamous, slightly unequal, affixed to the base of the tube; 
filaments filiform ; anthers ovate, retrorse, opening by two slits. Ovary 
2-celled; ovules 2 in each cell, descending; style slender, capitellate. 
Fruit drupaceous; exocarp slender; pyrenes 4; seeds descending ; 
embryo exalbuminous; radicle superior; cotyledons ovate, fleshy.—A 
Small shrub. Leaves alternate, petiolate. Flowers very similar to 
those of Myoporum, subsessile in the upper ieaf-axils or terminal with 
a few leaves under the calyx. 
Endemic, 
1. Z. africana, Baill. Hist. des Pl. ix. 421. A small shrub. 
Branches terete, softly pubescent when young, afterwards nearly 
glabrous, and striate with numerous slightly wavy ridges ; nodes 
thickened. Leaves alternate or sometimes appearing fascicled by arrest 
of the lateral branches, shortly petiolate, elliptic-lanceolate, obtuse, 
crenulate, pilose beneath and at the margin, sparingly so above, 
3-1} in. long, 2-4 lin. broad; primary nerves 2 or 3 pairs, very 
oblique ; petioles }—1 lin. long. Flowers and fruit not seen.—Wettst. 
in Engl. & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iv. 3 B. 360; Briquet in Bull. Herb. 
Boiss. iv. 324. Myoporum, sp. africana, Benth, Fl. Austr. v. 7, In 
obs., and in Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii. 1124, in obs. 
Upper Guinea. Niger Territory, Barter, 1143: ; 
In the absence of good material, the systematic position of this genus must remitin 
(loubtful. Bentham, in the Flora Australiensis, lc., regarded it as a species or 
Myoporum, but subsequently (Gen. Pl, lc.) retracted that opinion. Dr. J. 
riquet, who has studied the histology of this plant, suggests that it may belong to 
Selaginee or Verbenacee, but its fruit does not agree with that of the former order, 
hor the position of the radicle with that of the latter. The generic name derived 
from a place-name, Zomba—not Zomba in British Central Africa—is apt to mislead, 
4s the plant has been found only on the western side of the continent. 
