FLORA NIGRITIANA. 335 
abortive ones on the opposite side, forming a gradual passage 
through Jack’s and other Eastern species to the more common 
forms of Parinarium. On the other hand, those species which 
De Candolle had placed in his section Neocarya, characterized 
chiefly by the stamens being all fertile, prove to have in fact 
fertile ones on one side, and sterile on the other, as in Petro- 
carya; and the genus must, if at all, be divided on other prin- 
ciples. 
Taking as the essential character of Parinarium, among Chry- 
sobalanee, the spurious dissepiment which separates the ovules, 
the species we are acquainted with may be distributed into three 
sections, viz. : 
§. 1. Petrocarya (Balantium, Desv.) Calyce æquali v. vix 
gibbo, laciniis acutis, staminibus fertilibus sepius paucis 
(7-8 v. rarius 10-15.)—To this section belong the African 
P. excelsum and P. curatellefolium, the whole of the 
known American species, (four from Guiana or the West 
Indies, and three or four from Brazil), and most probably 
among Asiatic ones the P. Sumatranum (Petrocarya, Jack.), 
P. glaberrimum, Hassk., and P. scabrum, Hassk., which 
three last I have not seen. 
§. 2. Sarcostegia. Calyce æquali v. vix gibbo carnoso laciniis 
obtusis, staminibus numerosis (25-40, rarius 11 ?), foliis 
basi biglandulosis.— To this belong the African P. poly- 
andrum, the Asiatic P. Griffithianum, and possibly also 
P. Jackianum, (Petrocarya excelsa, Jack.) which is un- 
known to me. 
§. 3. Neocarya. Calyce basi hine gibboso-saccato, laciniis 
obtusis, staminibus plurimis fertilibus (cirea 15).—Con- 
fined to the two following African species. 
4. Parinarium macrophyllum, Brown, G. Don, Trans. Hort. 
Soc. 5. p. 452.—8t. Thomas and Sierra Leone, Don. 
The leaves are as much as nine inches long and five broad, 
closely sessile and broadly cordate at the base ; in other respects 
they much resemble those of P. Senegalense. The down of 
the stem, leaves and inflorescence, the inflorescence itself and 
the flowers are so much alike in the two species as to suggest 
