GUTTIFERALES.] 



DIPTERACE.E. 



395 



LopuiRACR.£. — Endl. Under this name Mr. Endlicher proposes to establish an Order, of which the 

 following is the description. "Trees from tropical Africa, having a pyramidal form, many branches, and 

 a dry bark. Leaves alternate, stalked, quite entire, with raised 

 veins, and a jointed stalk; stipules very small and deciduous, 

 planted on each side of the leaf-stalk at the base. Flowers perfect, 

 regula;-, axillary and terminal, panicled, yellow, Avith straggling 

 flower-stalks which are jointed above the base, and f\iniished with 

 2 very small bracts at the articulation. Sepals 5, the 3 inner 

 smaller and concave, the two outer opposite, larger, and finally ex- 

 panded into a pair of wings. Petals 5, h\-pogj-nous, without claws, 

 their points twisted together in aestivation, eventually spreading 

 flat. Stamens hypogynous, indefinite, nearly in two rows ; fila- 

 ments filiform, short ; anthers 2-celled, their cells linear, opposite, 

 parallel, adnate, opening at the point by a lateral cleft. Disk 0. 

 Ovary conical, one-celled ; o\Tiles 00, long, curved backwards, 

 hooked, placed upon a thick free basal placenta ; stigmas 2, very 

 small, twisted, reflexed. Nut leathery, spindle-shaped, contracted 

 at the base, and consolidated with the enlarged calyx, one-celled, 

 and by abortion one-seeded. Seeds erect, with a thin membranous 

 skin. Embrj-o without albumen ; cotyledons amygdaloid, plano- 

 convex; radicle very short, immersed, inferior. The solitary genus 



which constitutes this Order is allied to nothing yet known. It is 

 very different from Dipterocarpeae (Dipteraceae), ^vith which it is 

 associated because of its two enlarged calyx-leaves, and yet it can 

 scarcely be excluded from the Guttiferous class." — Enchiridion, p. 



526. In his Guttiferous class Mr. Endlicher includes Dipteraceae, 



Chlfenaceae, Ternstromiaceae, Clusiaceae, Marcgraa%iaceae, Hyperi- 

 caceae, Elatinaceae, Reaumuriaceae, Tamaricaceae. It must be con- 

 fessed that none of those present any marked resemblance to 

 Lophira, which is the Scrubby Oak of Sierra Leone, except Dipter- 

 ads and Guttifers. To the irregular fruit of the former that of 

 Lophira is quite similar, but its ovary is one-celled, with a crowd of 

 ovules upon a free central placenta, its seed is solitary with the 

 radicle downwards, and the cotyledons are plano-convex, aU points 

 of diff'erence from Dipterads, which have an ovarj- with 3 cells, a 

 pair of pendulous ovules in each, a seed with the radicle upwards, 

 and crumpled cotyledons. Moreover Lophira wants the large 

 stipules of Dipterads. On the other hand, its foliage is so like 

 that of Calophyllum, a genus of Guttifers, that the one might be 

 mistaken for the other, except that the leaves of Lophira are alter- 

 nate ; but in all the structure of the fruit the genus differs from the 

 Guttiferous Order. Nevertheless, although Lophira is so different 

 from Dipterads it is to be obsen-ed that it agrees with that Order 

 not alone in its peculiar calyx ; for in both cases the o-vules are 

 anatropal, and consequently the radicle is directed to the hilum, 

 and in Lophira there is an e-vident tendency to produce the long 

 anthers which are so characteristic of Dipteraceaj. The late M. 

 Guillemin regarded it as being absolutely a Dipterad, because " of 

 the convolute asstivation of the petals, the length of the 2 sepals 

 extended into membranous wings, one of them being moreover out 

 of all proportion to the others, the alternate leaves furnished with 

 little deciduous stipules, and the dry corky bark not filled with 

 milky secretions."— See Ftorte Senegambice Ttntamen, p. 110. 



GENUS. 



Lophira, Banks. 



Fig. CCLXXVIIl. 



Fig. CCLXXVIIl.— Lophira alata.— Dccaisne. a an anther ; b a perpendicular section of an ovary 

 c a fruit ; d a perpendicular section of a fruit. 



