84 ILLUSTRATIONS OF 



This is a small tree with dense opake foliage^ which I found 

 growing upon the Morro Flamengo, a hill at the point of Bota- 

 fogo Bay^ near Rio de Janeiro. Its opposite leaves are erect, 

 almost adpressed to the sterns^ sessile, ovate, somewhat cordate 

 at base, rounded, with a small emarginature at the summit ; they 

 are 2 to 2| inches long, and 1^ to 2 inches broad, with inter- 

 nodes distant |- to | of an inch ; they are thick and coriaceous, 

 the upper surface dark green, rather polished, with raised vena- 

 tions, and a minute pubescence scarcely visible by the naked eye j 

 beneath they are of a pale glaucous green, the midrib being thick 

 and prominent, and tumid at base ; a tuft of hairs adjoins the 

 midrib at the base of each nerve. The inflorescence is generally 

 terminal in the branchlets, in the axils of the young leaves, 

 in slender panicles about 2 inches long, with oppositely divari- 

 cating bracteated branchlets i the pedicels being very short and 

 square, with a small oblong, concave, reflected bract at base, with 

 ciliated margins. The persistent calyx, scarcely a line in length, 

 has a short cup-shaped tube, rising from a small fleshy torus, 

 with its border divided into four unequal, rather obtuse, erect 

 segments, the two lateral ones being somewhat broader j these 

 have on the inner face a very prominent midrib, which, as well 

 as the margin, is beset with white ciliate hairs. The corolla con- 

 sists of fom* alternate equal, linear, white, revolute petals, with a 

 rounded apex and an inflected margin, about half an inch long 

 and 1 line broad. The stamens are very small, barely a line in 

 length ; the filaments being very short, broad, fleshy, expanding 

 at the base, and though free, form a sort of hypogynous tube 

 around the ovariimi and within the base of the petals, with which 

 they alternate ; they terminate in a fleshy connective that exceeds 

 the anthers, forming an obtuse appendage at their summit ; the 

 anthers are coriaceous, oblong, with two distinct parallel cells fixed 

 at the back of the connective, the dehiscence being thus extrorse, 

 by a longitudinal fissure in each cell ; the pollen is minute, yel- 

 low, granular, and marked with rounded prominences at trian- 

 gular distances. The ovarium is oblong, 3-grooved, 2-celled, 

 the cells being lateral and opposite the broader segments of the 

 calyx, each containing two ovules, suspended collaterally on the 

 dissepiment a little below its summit. The style is very short 

 and thick, terminated by a stigma, with two fleshy, obtuse, diva- 

 ricate lobes. The berry is dark purple, oval, about | of an inch 

 long and | of an inch in diameter, with httle pulp, inclosing a 

 single coriaceous putamen, marked outside by several reticulated 

 venous threads, branching from the base; it contains two seeds, 

 which are often unequal in size, without any intervening" disse- 

 piment, or sometimes only one by abortion ; the testa is thin, 

 brown, with a slender adhering integument, and marked with a 



