210 SIR J. D. HOOKER ON CASTILLOA ELASTICA 
more or less from Ше Caucho of Darien, collected by Mr. Cross, and one of them 
may, I think, be safely referred to the С. elastica of Cervantes. Unfortunately only 
one of them is accompanied with specimens of foliage, which, however, is that of the 
fruit which I attribute to C. elastica, and it further agrees with that of Mexican speci- 
mens of Ule. The other materials at Kew referable to Сав (оа consist of :—flowers 
and leaves of the Ule from Mexico, collected by Ervendberg, Schiede and Deppe, and 
by Bourgeau ; leaves of the Honduras Ule from D. Morris, Esq.; of the Nicaraguan Ule 
collected by P. Levy, and named var. Costa-ricensis, Bureau ; San Salvador specimens of 
foliage and dried fruit from Mr. Sutton Hayes; flowering branches from Guatemala, 
collected by Frederiesthal; and leaves and flowers of the Jeve from the plains near 
Guyaquil, sent by Spruce as C. elastica. 
These herbarium specimens present no characters of habit, foliage, or flowers to 
distinguish them from C. elastica: all the branchlets are clothed densely with substrigose 
buff-coloured hairs; the leaves are scabrid above, and densely hirsute or hirsutely 
tomentose beneath. On the other hand Cross’s indigenous specimens of Caucho, and 
those cultivated in Ceylon, have the branchlets less clothed with hairs, and the under 
surface of the leaves less thickly tomentose. 
Turning to the fruits in fluid, to the figure from Dr. Trimen, and to that accom- 
panying Cervantes’ account of Ule, these all agree in consisting of a fleshy circular disk, 
1-3 inches in diameter, clothed beneath and on the circumference with densely imbri- 
cating triangular scales, and bearing on the upper surface 8-30 confluent orange-red, 
thick, coriaceous, one-seeded carpels, with more or less prominent pyramidal crowns. 
These carpels present important differences, possibly specific; but from the materials 
available it is not possible to determine what may constitute a species amongst them, 
and I shall therefore confine myself to defining the typical C. elastica more exactly than 
has hitherto been done, and follow this by descriptions of the forms allied to it. 
I. CasrILLOA ELASTICA*, Cervantes, in Gaz. Litt. Меліс. 1794 (translated in Tracts 
“relative to Botany, London, 1805, p. 235, t. 9): ramulis crassis strigoso-hirsutis, 
foliis amplis breviter petiolatis bifariis oblongis v. obovato-oblongis abrupte acutatis 
basi cordatis integerrimis v. apicem versus denticulatis supra scabridis subtus 
dense hirsutis tomentosisve, nervis utrinque 17-91, stipulis 2-3-pollicaribus deciduis, 
receptaculis axillaribus turbinatis bracteis triangularibus persistentibus imbricatis 
tectis, ¢ breviter pedunculatis, 9 subsessilibus, floribus ¢ achlamydeis densissime 
confertis, staminibus (floribus singulis?) bracteolis immixtis, fl. 9 perianthiis 
ovoideis infra medium connatis ore minute 3-4-lobo, receptaculo fructifero disci- 
formi crasso, basi margineque bracteis imbricatis appressis densissime tecto, 
carpellis maturis carnosis infra medium connatis superne liberis pyramidatis minute 
pubescentibus, parte libera 3-4-suleata angulis rotundatis apice depressa 3—4-loba. 
— Cavanilles, in Ann. des Hist. Nat. Madrid (1800), ii. p. 126; Тубси!, in Ann. 
* Published anonymously, but known to be by Chas. Kænig, F.R.S., Keeper of the Mineralogical Department 
of the British Museum. 
