Oldfieldia. | CXXII, EUPHORBIACE (HUTCHINSON). 625 
12. OLDFIELDIA, Benth. et Hook. f.; Benth. et Hook. 
fGen. Fl i. coe: 
Flowers diccious. Petals absent. Male flowers: Calyx shortly 
5-7-fid. Stamens 4-10, inserted around a very thick fleshy villous 
shortly lobed disk; filaments free; anthers erect ; cells distinct, ovoid, 
contiguous, dehiscing longitudinally. Rudimentary ovary filiform, 
entire, truncate. Female flowers not known, Capsule depressed- 
globose, 3-celled, dehiscing loculicidally into 3 two-valyed cocci; peri- 
carp thick, hard. Seeds 1-2 in each cell, obliquely obovoid, slightly 
compressed ; testa crustaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons flat, broad. 
—A tree. Leaves opposite, petiolate, digitately 5—-8-foliolate ; leaflets 
more or less stalked, entire, penninerved. Male flowers in lax axillary 
cymes. 
Monotypic, endemic. 
1. O. africana, Benth. d: Hook. f. in Hook, Kew Journ. ii, 185, t. 6. 
A tall, extensive tree, with the habit of a Vitex ; branchlets slightly sul- 
cate, rusty-puberulous when young, soon glabrescent. Leaves digitate ; 
petiole up to 8 in. long, suleate, puberulous ; leaflets 5-8, oblanceolate or 
oblong-elliptic, more or less acuminate, very acute at the base, up to 
7 in, long and 24 in. broad, papery or subcoriaceous, glabrous; lateral 
nerves 8-10 on each side, looped, in the larger leaflets prominent below, 
in the smaller scarcely visible; petiolules up to 3 in. long, grooved 
above. Male flowers in lax pedunculate axillary cymes; cymes brown- 
puberulous. Calyx-segments 5-7, rounded, rusty-pubescent. Stamens 
2-10, inserted outside the disk; filaments free. Disk very thick, 
densely pubescent. Rudimentary ovary filiform, truncate, glabrous, 
hidden by the disk. Female flowers unknown. Capsule depressed- 
globose, 1 in. in diam., 3-celled, loculicidal ; pericarp hard, woody, about 
# lin. thick ; seeds 2 in each cell, or 1 by abortion, obliquely obovoid, 
about 5 lin. long, slightly compressed; testa crustaceous ; albumen 
Copious; cotyledons flat, very broad.—Hiern in Cat. Afr. Pl. Welw. i. 963. 
Upper Guinea. Sierra Leone: in vast forests on the north side of the colony, 
Welwitseh, 478! Rotambe Island, near Sierra Leone, Kirk, 24! Samu River, 
Vogel! and without precise locality, Oldfield! Mann! Unwin & Smythe, 19! 
Known to commerce as “ African oak.” 
13. ARISTOGEITONIA, Prain in Kew Bulletin, 1908, 438. 
_ Flowers monecious. Petals absent. Male flowers: Jalyx 6-par- 
tite ; lobes 2-seriate, imbricated. Disk 0. Stamens 14-15; filaments 
ree; anthers ovate, cells 2, parallel, dehiscing longitudinally. Rudi- 
mentary ovary large, 3-lobed. Female flowers: Calyx 6-partite; lobes 
2-seriate, imbricated. Disk conspicuous, annular, crenately lobed. 
vary 3-celled ; styles short, flat, spreading, obcordate, thickened, 
very slightly connate at the base ; ovules in each cell paired. Capsuie 
breaking up into 3 two-valved cocci ; endocarp hard, crustaceous. Seed 
YOR, VI.—SECT, 1 es 
