THE PLANT WORLD 197 



some points of divergence. The corolla of our specimen is strongly 

 arcuate while Seeman's was nearly straight ; and the buds are not as long 

 as broad, while his are more than twice as long as broad. Further, he 

 describes a pod ripened at Kew as lignified, rostrate at both ends and 

 only one inch thick, resembling that of the unicorn plant {^Martynia pro- 

 boscidea). This certainly could apply only to a very different fruit from 

 any we have seen. But notwithstanding these discrepancies the plants 

 may be more similar than would at first appear. Seeman's fruit ripened 

 in a greenhouse and may well have been abnormal from imperfect fertili- 

 zation or some other cause. The differences in the flowers and buds 

 might be due to individual peculiarities or to poor drawing. So for the 

 present it seems best to consider our plant Amphitecna macrophylla. 



"O-hoch," as the Indians call the plant, grows to be a small tree 

 with a trunk about half a foot in diameter, from which arise several spind- 

 ling branches, bare except at their tips, where twenty or more leaves are 

 arranged in a great rosette five feet in diameter. The leaves are about 

 2/^ feet (75 cm.) long, 6 inches (15 cm.) broad, spatulate or oblanceolate, 

 gradually narrowed to the long cuneate base, nearly sessile, rounded or 

 acute at the tip, entire or subundulate, mid-rib large and prominent, 

 stiff, green on both sides and glabrous, but dull contrasting with the 

 glossy leaves of Crescentia and Parmentiera. 



The flowers are borne from the trunk or larger branches sometimes on 

 special dwarf branches an inch long. The buds are nearly spherical, 

 flattened and apiculate on top, tearing open irregularly in aestivation 

 but frequently with an upper and a lower lip. The corolla is greenish - 

 white, irregularly scalloped but not fimbriate. Just inside the jaws of 

 the calyx the tube has a deep transverse fold or contraction which dimin- 

 ishes its size by half. 



The fruit is 6/4 inches (16 cm.) long, 2>4 inches (6 cm.) thick, trav- 

 ersed by several longitudinal ridges, some of which divide toward the 

 base. The gores between the ridges are nearly smooth, while in most 

 species of cacao ( Theobrovia) the ridges are replaced by grooves and 

 the gores are more or less knurly and irregular. The rind is coriaceous, 

 not lignified like a calabash. The pod is two-celled by a weak membran- 

 ous dissepiment. The cavities are filled with seeds packed in pithy mat- 

 ter. As in the calabash this mass is attached to the sides by several 

 membranes running parallel to them. The seeds of our specimen (not 

 quite ripe) are about eleven -sixteenths of an inch (16 mm.) long, five- 

 sixteenths of an inch (7.5 mm.) broad and half as thick, ovoid with two 

 small knobs on the end of the dorsal side, along which runs a groove where 

 the edges of the cotyledons come together. The latter are longer than 

 broad, not kidney-shaped, but yet resembling those of a bean. Between 

 them lies the narrow, almost linear plumule, with lanceolate leaves half 



