542 



CHRYSOBALANACE^. 



[Perigynous Exogens. 



Order CCVIII. CHRYSOBALANACEiE.— Chrysobalans. 



Cbrysobalaneae, R. Brown, in Tuckey's Voyage to the Congo, App. (1818); DC. Prodr. 2. 525. a % of 

 Rosacese; Bartl. Ord. Nat. p. 405; Endl. Gen. cclxxiv.; Meisner Gen. p. 101. 



Diagnosis. — Rosal Exogens, with pdlypetalous or apetalous flowers, lohich are nearly or 

 quite regular, a solitary carpel, and a style proceeding from its base. 



Trees or shrubs. Leaves simple, alternate, stipulate, with no glands, and veins that 

 run parallel wdth each other from the midrib to the margin. Flowers in racemes, or 



panicles, or corymbs. Calyx 5-lobed, 

 sometimes imequal at the base, with 

 an imbricated aestivation. Petals 

 with short stalks, more or less irre- 

 gular, either 5 or none. Stamens 

 either definite or 00, usually irregu- 

 lar either in size or position. Ovary 

 superior, consisting of a single carpel, 

 1- or 2-celled, cohering more or less 

 on one side with the calyx ; ov-ules 

 twin, erect, anatropal ; style single, 

 arising from the base ; stigma simple. 

 Fniit a drupe of 1 or 2 cells. Seed 

 erect. Embryo with fleshy cotyle- 

 dons, and no albumen. 



The ob%ious affinity of this Order 

 is with Almondworts, from which it 

 differs in having irregular stamens 

 and petals, and a style proceeding 

 from the base of the ovary. With 

 Rosew'orts, to which Chrysobalans 

 have a strict relation, they agree in 

 the same manner as Ahnondworts, 

 excepting the characters just pointed 

 out. To leguminous plants, with 

 drupaceous fruit, they approach 

 closely in the irregularity of their 

 stamens and corolla, and especially 

 in the cohesion which takes place between the stalk of the ovary and the sides of the 

 calyx ; a character found, as De Candolle well remarks, in Jonesia and Bauhinia, 

 imdoubted leguminous plants : Chrysobalans are distinguished from this latter Order 

 by the position of their style and o\ailes, and by the relation wiiich is boi'ne to the axis 

 of inflorescence by the odd lobe of the calyx being the same as occurs in Roseworts. 

 Brown remarks that the greater part of the Order has the flowers more or less irregu- 

 lar, and that the simple ovary of Parinarium has a dissepiment in some degree analo- 

 gous to the moveable dissepiment of Banksia and Dryandra ; but we now know, from 

 the more i-ecent observations of this learned Botanist upon the ovule, that the dissepi- 

 ment of Proteads arises differently. The analogy of structure, as to the dissepiment of 

 Parinarium, is to be sought in Amelanchier. 



Cluysobalans are principally found in the tropical regions of Africa and America ; 

 none are recorded as natives of Asia ; but there is reason to believe, from specimens of 

 large trees seen m the forests of India, w ithout flowers or fruit, by Wallich, that one or 

 two species of Parinariiun are indigenous in equinoctial Asia ; and Royle's genus Prin- 

 sepia, founded upon a spiny plant from Nipal, is apparently referable to this Order. 

 One species of Clu*ysobalanus is foimd as far to the north as the pine-barrens of Georgia 

 in North America ; a climate, however, as in all the regions boundmg the Gulf of 

 Mexico on the north, much more heated than that of most other countries in the same 

 parallel of latitude. 



Many of these are what in Europe are called Stone-fruits. Moquilea gi'andiflora 

 yields eatable drupes in Brazil. The fruit of Chrysobalanus Icaco is eaten in the West 



Fig. CCCLXIX 



Fig. CCCLXIX. — Moquilea canomensis. 

 section of the last ; 4. a fi-uit ; 5. a kernel. 



-Martins. 1. a flower ; 2. an ovary ; 3. a perpendicular 



