654 swingle: severinia buxifolia 



eluded this plant in his Flora Hongkongensis under the name 

 Atalantia buxifolia Oliv. MS., and in the same year Oliver him- 

 self described it in his treatise on the Aurantiaceae. In his 

 paper he doubts the Indian station for this plant, saying [Introd. 

 p. 11]: " Atalantia buxifolia I believe to be an Eastern Asiatic 

 species only, and not a Coromandel plant, as stated in Rox- 

 burgh's 'Flora Indica,' " and [p. 26] "I consider this alleged In- 

 dian station to have originated in some garden mistake . . ." 



Roemer, 5 the indefatigable but uncritical compiler, described 

 the plant in 1846 under three different names: (1) Atalantia 

 Loureiriana, based on the Limonia monophylla of Loureiro, not 

 of Linnaeus; (2) Helie atalantioides, based on Sclerostylis ata- 

 lantioides W. & A., and having Limonia bilocularis Roxb. as a 

 synonym; and (3) Citrus buxifolia Poir. Under the latter name, 

 he remarks that this may be a variety of Citrus sinensis Risso. 



The best and fullest account of the plant as yet published, 

 giving both the morphological and anatomical characters, is 

 that by Penzig. 6 As it was the only species of Atalantia studied 

 by him, he did not have opportunity to note how widely it dif- 

 fers from the typical species, Atalantia monophylla (Roxb.) DC, 

 and its congeners. 



As a matter of fact it is very unlike the true Atalantias, dif- 

 fering in having a berry-like fruit becoming very dark red or 

 nearly black, as it ripens, through the softening and darkening 

 of the ovarial walls. The pulp vesicles remain very rudimen- 

 tary, mere blunt papillae lining the ovary walls, quite unlike 

 the pulp vesicles of the true Atalantias. Two or three large oil 

 glands develop in the mesocarpic tissues of the young ovary. 



The leaves are shiny above, very strongly veined below and 

 emarginate (see fig. 1). The flowers are smal and the stamens 

 are free, with rather broad filaments. The seeds are green, 

 large and subglobose, with thin teguments, and germinate from 

 buried cotyledons; the first post-cotyledonary leaves are cata- 

 phylls, as in Eremocitrus and Poncirus (see fig. 2). 



5 Roemer, M. J. Fam. Nat. Reg. Veg. Syn. Monogr., Fasc. 1, p. 37, 42, 52. 

 1846. 



B Penzig, Otto. Siudi hot. sugli agrumi, in Annal. di. Agric. 1S87, no. 116, 

 p. 149-163; Atlas, pi. 11, figs. 6-17, pi. 12, figs. 1-21. 1887. 



