Ocotea. | LAURINE (Stapf). — 499 
or 4 whorls, the outer 3 fertile, the fourth (if present) staminodial] ; 
anthers 4-valved ; valves in superposed pairs, of the 2 outer whorls 
introrse, of the third extrorse or subextrorse, very rarely introrse ; 
filaments very short or 0, or longer than the anthers, of the third 
whorl with a sessile, very rarely stipitate, gland at each side of the 
base ; staminodes, if present, slender ; ovary ovoid, ellipsoid or sub- 
globose, usually glabrous, longer or shorter than the style. Male: 
as in the hermaphrodite flowers, but ovary sterile, stalk-like or quite 
Suppressed. Female: as in the hermaphrodite flowers, but stamens 
rudimentary, barren. Fruit baccate, ellipsoid or globose, seated on 
or in an enlarged cupular receptacle, which is either truncate or 
6-toothed or 6-lobed from the persistent perianth-lobes, 
Trees or shrubs; leaves alternate, membranous or coriaceous, glabrous or 
hairy ; flowers small, in cymes, arranged in axillary or subterminal panicles. 
Distris. Species about 200, mostly in Tropical America, 1 in Tropical 
Africa, 1 in South Africa, and a few in the Mascarene Islands, 
1. 0. bullata (E. Meyer in Drége, Zwei PA. Documente, 205, 
name only); a tree, 60-80 ft. high, with a straight clean trunk, 
3-5 ft. in diam. ; bark dark brown, rugged and scaly in old trees ; 
young branches very minutely greyish pubescent at their tips, soon 
glabrous, drying dark brown or blackish ; leaves alternate, elliptic 
to oblong, shortly acuminate, obtuse or subacute at the base, 2—4 in, 
long, 1-2 in. broad, coriaceous, glabrous ; lateral nerves about 6 on 
each side of the midrib, closely and prominently reticulated on both 
sides ; usually large pits (acarodomitia) with ciliolate orifices on the 
underside in the axils of the lowest 1—2 pairs of nerves, the pits 
corresponding to large hollow tubercles on the upper side ; petiole 
2-1 in. long, channelled above ; panicles from the axils of some of 
the uppermost leaves, lax, including the peduncles 2-3 in. long, about 
1 in. wide, very finely and scantily pubescent at least in the upper 
part; peduncles } to over 1 in. long ; bracts ovate, concave, very 
early deciduous, greyish-silky-pubescent ; pedicels 1 (rarely 2) lin, 
long ; flowers polygamous, perianth yellowish-white, finely pubescent 
without, 24 lin. across when quite open ; receptacle hemispheric, 
% lin. high, glabrous within 3 Segments spreading, subequal, ovate- 
elliptic, obtuse, ciliolate, glabrous within ; stamens of the male and 
hermaphrodite flowers with linear glabrous filaments as long as the 
anthers ; glands sessile, subglobese, on each side of the base of the 
stamens of the third whorl ; Staminodes narrow, acute, about 2 lin. 
long ; stamens and staminodes of the female very much reduced ; 
ovary immersed, but free, in the receptacle, like the slender style 
glabrous ; stigma discoid; fruit oblong, ? in. long, } in. in diam. 
Seated in the cup-shaped enlarged receptacle which equals about 4 of 
the fruit. Sim, For. Fl. Cap. 289, t. 122; Thonn. Blittenpfl. Afr. 
t. 52; Burtt-Davy in Transv. Agr. Journ. v. 467 : #172. Oreodaphne 
bullata, Nees, Syst. Laur. 449; Meisn. in DC. Prodr. xv. i. 118. 
Laurus bullata, Burch. Trav. i. 72. ail 
K 
