100 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
contracted into a narrow, acute tip; walls woody and nearly 2 em. thick; 
opening 5.5 cm. in diameter; inside divided in 4 cells by persistent septa reach- 
ing a little over halfway from the inside periphery to the center (figs. 3, 4); 
axis of pyxidium occupied by a thick, 4-winged columella connected at the base 
with the septa, thinner and quadrangular toward its upper end, and then 
spreading again in a 4-winged expansion concrescent with the base of the 
operculum (when mature the columella breaks just at the thinnest place below 
that expansion, thus loosing the operculum) ; seeds fusiform, sulcate, 4 to 5 em. 
long, 1.7 to 2 cm. in diameter, typically 9 in each cell, but oftener 6 to 8, 
attached in 38 rows (of 3 each) at base of columella, through a thick, fleshy 
funicle. 
On the plains of San Carlos, at La Sedina, at about 100 meters above sea 
level. The tree that was especially noticed by Mr. O. I. Cook, Mr, G. N. Collins, 
and myself in April, 1908, grew on a wooded hill near the cacao plantations of 
the above-named finca and made itself conspicuous among the other forest 
trees by its larger dimensions. On the ground were found old shells and fresh 
seeds and opercules, and we also succeeded in obtaining a fresh fruit with its 
Fic. 3.—Fruit of Leeythis costaricensis, Fig. 4.—Fruit of Leeythis costaricensis. 
Longitudinal section. One-half nat- Transverse section, One-half natural 
ural size. size. 
contents, that had accidentally fallen; these were carefully photographed by 
Mr, C. B. Doyle and belong now to Mr. Cook’s collection. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATES.—PDlate VI one-half, Plate VII about one-fourth natural 
size; Plate VIII natural size. In Plate VIII the smooth, light-shaded bodies attached 
to the seeds are the fleshy funicles. 
From the general description of the leaves the specimen under consideration 
would come near Lecythis lanceolata Poir., but the fruit is widely different, 
The name of ZL, ollaria has often been given to the Costa Rican species, more for 
convenience’s sake than for accuracy. Nobody truly knows what LL. ollaria is, 
“although it must be considered the type species of the genus; and it is not 
unlikely that Loefling’s imperfectly described Venezuelan species has been re- 
named by later botanists. 
The species from Costa Rica is known among the natives as cocobola, while 
the fruit is the olla de mono or monkey pot. The hard wood is used in the 
making of carts, and the nuts are eagerly sought by squirrels, monkeys. and 
men. Their flavor is much finer than that of the Brazil nuts of commerce, 
but the supply of them is insignificant. 
