404 LII. HAMAMELIDE (OLIVER). 
late, longitudinally stigmatose style (or stigmas terminal). Ovules 
(solitary or) indefinite ; placentation axile. Fruit a capsule. Seeds 
albuminous.—Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate or opposite, stipulate. 
Flowers capitate spicate or racemose. 
A small Natural Order, widely spread, but absent from South America, Europe, and 
Australia, One genus is peculiar to the Cape, another to Madagascar, and Myro- 
thamnus, the only representative in Tropical Africa, occurs also in Madagascar and at 
the Cape. 
1. MYROTHAMNUS, Welw.; Benth. et Hook. f. 
Gen. Plant. i. 1005. 
Flowers dicecious, achlamydeous, spicate. Male flowers: Stamens 
4-8; filaments short or elongate, free; anthers oblong, tetragonous or 
obovate-cuneate, 2-celled, basifixed, dehiscing longitudinally ; connec- 
tive shortly produced at the apex. Female flowers: Ovary 3—4-car- 
pellary, 3-4-gonous, 3—4-celled below, with 2 ovules on an axile pla- 
centa, carpels free above, longitudinally stigmatose on the inner face. 
Capsule coriaceous, in M. flabellifolia dehiscing above by the ventral 
sutures of the free apices of the carpels; many-seeded. Seeds (im 
same species) ‘minute, ovoid, with copious fleshy albumen.”—Shrubs 
from 1 or 2 to 6 or 8 ft.; wholly glabrous, abounding in a balsamic 
resin, rigid, erect, with strict opposite branches. Leaves opposite, sub- 
sessile, ftlabellate-cuneiform, crenate-dentate, plicate-nerved (or linear 
denticulate at apex). Stipules minute, subulate. Spikes erect, cylin- 
drical, terminal. 
But two species are known—the following and another, Myoswrandra moschata, 
Baill. in Adansonia, ix. t. 8, peculiar to Madagascar. 
1. M. flabellifolia, Welw. Apont. Phytog. Angol. Shrub varying 
from 1-7 ft., extremities early woody, tetragonous, bark fissuring lon- 
gitudinally. Leaves 4—3in. long more or less, }—1 in. broad, toothed, 
during the dry season closely plicate. Bracts broadly ovate. Stamens 
4-8 (5); anthers subsessile. Ovary 3-celled, carpels connate half- 
way.—Linn. Trans. xxvii. 23. t. 8. Cliffortia? flabellifolia, Sond. Fil. 
Cap. ii. 597. 
Lower Guinea. Pungo Andongo, 3-4000 ft., and Huilla, 55500 t., Angola, » 
Dr, Welwitsch! 
Mozamb. Distr. “ The Boss,” 4000 ft., Mgunda-Mkhali, Speke and Grant! 
Also at the Cape. 
M. Baillon’s plant differs in its tetramerous pistil, and in the presence of a pair of 
lateral bracteoles to each flower, but it is doubtless a congener. 
Orver LIT. HALORAGES. (By Prof. Oliver.) 
Flowers small or minute, hermaphrodite or unisexual, di- mono- 
achlamydeous. Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, limb toothed or 0} 
calyx wanting. Petals 2-4 or wanting. Stamens 1-2—4-8; anthers 
basifixed, 2-celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary 1- or 4-celled (in 
African genera). Ovules solitary (or 4 in Serpicula), pendulous ; styles 
