Ardisia. MYRSINEACE.E. 65 



coat, and a copious cartilaginous albumen. The fruit is pea-shaped, usually dry- 

 drupaceous, never capsular. Leaves simple, mostly alternate, without stipules, 

 commonly marked with some immersed dots or short lines, containing at first 

 pellucid but at length dark resinous matter ; these also appearing in the flower, 

 especially in the corolla. (There are similar dots or lines in Lysimachia, of the 

 preceding order.) No milky juice. Flowers small and the corolla short, rotate 

 or campanulate. A tropical order, sparingly reaching the southern borders of 

 the United States. 



TRIBE I. MYRSINEzE. Calyx perfectly free. No staminodia. Ovules usually im- 

 mersed in the fleshy placenta, only one maturing into a seed which fills the cavity 

 of the fruit. 



1. MYRSINE. Flowers mostly poly ga mo-dioecious, in axillary or lateral fascicles. Corolla 

 4-5-partcd, imbricated in the bud. Anthers short and usually blunt. 



2. ARDISIA. Flowers in panicles, either terminal or from the upper axils. Corolla rotate, 

 5- (rarely 4-6-) parted ; the lobes convolute in the bud, or sometimes one wholly exterior. 

 Anthers lanceolate-sagittate, pointed ; the cells dehiscent from the apex downward. 



TRIBE II. TIIEOPHRASTEzE. Calyx perfectly free. Staminodia or sterile sta- 

 mens in the throat at the sinuses of the corolla. Ovules numerous, not immersed 

 in the. placenta, maturing few or numsrous seeds. 



3. JACQUINIA. Calyx 5-cleft, with lobes rounded and much imbricated. Corolla short- 

 salverform or campanulate ; lobes rounded, imbricated in the bud : a rounded petaloid 

 appendage (representing a sterile stamen of the outer series) in each sinus. Stamens 5, 

 inserted low down on the tube of the corolla : filaments subulate : anthers oblong or 

 ovate, extrorsely dehiscent. Fruit ovoid or globose, leathery, pointed with the base of 

 the style. Seeds few, imbedded in the mucilage of the placenta. Embryo with ovate 

 cotyledons and slender radicle. 



1. MYRSfNE, L. (An ancient Greek name of Myrtle.) -- Shrubs or 

 trees ; with glabrous coriaceous leaves, small whitish flowers, and small dry berry- 

 like fruits. 



M. Rapanea, Roem. & Schult. Shrub or small tree : leaves thickish (2 inches or 

 more long), oblong-obovate, obtuse or retuse, entire, narrowed at base into a short petiole: 

 flowers sessile or nearly so in numerous small sessile clusters ; the cluster in age raised 

 on a short scaly-imbricated axis or spur : flowers 5-merous : drupe 2 lines in diameter, 

 obscurely pedicelled. Syst. iv. 509 (following indication of R. Br. Prodr.) ; A. DC. Prodr. 

 viii. 07 ; Miq. in Fl. Bras. ix. 307, t. 50-52. M.flonbunda, Griseb. Fl. W. Ind. 393. M. Flo- 

 ridana, A.DC. I.e. ; Chapm. Fl. 277. Rapanea Gui/anensis, Aubl. Guian. i. 121, t. 46; the 

 large and tropical form. Samara floribunda, Willd. Sp. i. 665. Florida Keys, Blodgett, 

 Hasslcr. (W. Ind. to S. Brazil.) 



2. ARDf SIA, Swartz. (From andig, the point of a thing, referring to the 

 pointed anthers, which are often connivent around the acute style, forming a 

 prominent cusp in the centre of the flower.) A large and wide-spread tropical 

 genus, with white or rose-colored corolla, and white, red, or blue berry-like fruits. 

 Our only species differs from the most of the genus in having the corolla-lobes 

 sinistrorsely overlapping, instead of the contrary direction, or occasionally with 

 one lobe wholly outside and one inside, as often happens in this aestivation. 



A. Pickeringia, Torr. & Gray. Shrub 5 to 9 feet high, glabrous : leaves from ob- 

 ovate to lanceolate-oblong, glaucescent, entire (2 to 4 inches long), contracted at base into 

 a petiole : panicle broad, many-flowered : lobes of the corolla oval, soon reflexed, com- 

 monly dark-lined, 2 lines long: style filiform: fruit as large as peas. A.DC. I.e. 124; 

 Chapm. Fl. 277. Cyrilla paniculata, Nutt. in Amer. Jour. Sci. v. 290. Pickeringia panini- 

 lata, Nutt. in Jour. Acad. Philad. vii. 1. E. Florida. (Mex. & W. Ind.) 



6 



