116 THALAMIFLOR^. 



nato-serratecl, pedicels axillary solitary bearing about 

 8 flowers in a head. 



HAB. Tweedside road, opposite Sheldon Works, Port-Royal. 



FL. May. 



A tree, about 20 feet in height : branches subterete, ash- 

 coloured, glabrous. Leaves crowded at the ends of the 

 branches, petiolate, oblong, acute at the base, rounded and 

 em^rginate at the apex, distantly serrato-crenated, coriaceous, 

 nerved and veined, very glabrous, about 4 inches long and 2 

 broad : petiole short, terete, slightly grooved above. Pedun- 

 cles axillary, solitary, not so long as the petiole, compressed, 

 bearing about eight small greenish shortly pedicelled flowers in 

 a head. Calycine sepals imbricated : the outer ones 4-5, much 

 smaller than the others, rounded ; the inner ones 4-5, oval, ob- 

 tuse. Petals usually 5, smaller than the inner sepals and al- 

 ternating with them, inserted on a hypogynous disk, oblong, 

 obtuse, horizontally spreading. Stamens 0. Ovary conical : 

 style scarcely any : stigma obtuse, subentire. Berry (drupe ?) 

 size of a gooseberry, spherical mono-pyrene, nut 2-celled, with 

 one of the cells abortive : seeds solitary, orbiculate, compressed : 

 embryo lamellated. 



1 have met with only one tree of this species. A distinguished 

 Botanist, to whom I submitted some rather imperfect speci- 

 mens, coincided with me in opinion, that it approached in some 

 respects to the genus to which I have for the present referred 

 it. 



III. GORDONIA. 



Calycine sepals 5, bibracteolated at the base, coria- 

 ceous rounded. Petals 5, subadnate with the urceole 

 of the stamens. Style 1. Stigmata 5. Capsule 5- 

 celled, 5-valved, with the cells '2-seeded. Seeds ex- 

 panded at one end into a leafy wing. 



Name, in honour of James Gordon, a correspondent of Lin- 

 naeus, and a Nurseryman in the neighbourhood of London. 



1. Gordonia haematoxylon. Blood-wood. 



Peduncles thick very short, leaves petiolate ovato- 

 lanceolate acuminate serrate, petals distinct, styles 5 

 distinct, fruit oblongo -ovate subpentagonal, cells 2- 

 seeded. 



SwartZy FL Ind. Occ. 1199. 

 HAB. Mountains, not uncommon. 

 FL. January — Marcli. 



