196 THE PLANT WORLD 



A Vegetable Mimic. 



By Robert F. Griggs. 



During the spring of 1902, while visiting the Department of Alta 

 Vera Paz, Guatemala, we were introduced by Mrs. William Owen, of 

 Sepacuite, to a small calabash tree of the family Crescentiaceae, which 

 had attracted her attention because of the curious resemblance of its pods 

 to those of cacao, from which comes the chocolate bean. The resemblance 

 is indeed striking. The fruit is elliptical and pointed at both ends like a 

 cacao pod and it is of the same size. The two are so similar that while 

 standing on my desk in a jar it was mistaken for a cacao pod by persons 

 familiar with that fruit. When seen growing in the forest the two are 

 even more similar. Both belong to that peculiar class of tropical plants 

 which bear their flowers and fruit on old branches instead of on recent 

 twigs like our common temperate plants. The fruits hang by short 

 peduncles from large branches bare of leaves and give the trunk a very 

 bizarre appearance. 



The plant belongs to the genus Amphitecna established by Miers 

 to accommodate a species described as Crescentia macrophylla. The 

 only other species is Amphitecyia nigripes, also first considered a Crescentia, 

 but referred to Amphitecna by Baillon. Both were described from 

 greenhouse specimens grown in Europe, and as the records of the im- 

 porters had been lost, the original habitats were unknown, though one 

 species (^macrophylla) was later collected in Tabasco. Neither species 

 has been studied in the wild state and knowledge of both has re- 

 mained very fragmentary, especially with regard to their fruits, for 

 though pods of both species have been seen they have not been fully 

 described. Amphitecna differs from the other American genera of Cres- 

 centiaceae by its completely two-celled ovary. In fruit the ovary of 

 another plant (Enallagma) is also two-celled by a false dissepiment, but it 

 is hard and round like the calabash. Externally the fruit of Parmentiera 

 also somewhat resembles that of the present species, but it is one-celled 

 and the calyx is spathe-like and early deciduous. 



The fruit of the other genus, the hard spherical one-celled calabash, is 

 so familiar that the differences between it and the soft pod under con- 

 sideration need not be pointed out. Crescentia and Parmentiera have a 

 peculiar leaf habit, resembling that of the conifers, in that special dwarf 

 branches are provided which bear the leaves in bunches, giving the plants 

 a characteristic appearance. The other two genera have a leaf arrange- 

 ment more like those of plants familiar to us. 



It has not been easy to place our plant specifically, for though its 

 general appearance is similar to that of Amphitecna macrophylla, there are 



