©rtstnal ^rtttlts. 



ON THE FLOEAL STKUCTUEE AND AFFINITIES OF 



SAPOTACE.^. 



By Marcus M. Hartog, M.A., B.Sc, F.L.S. 



In the spring months of 1877 I had the opportunity of 

 following the development of the flower in the following species 

 of Sapotacece, cultivated in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, 

 Ceylon : — Chrysophijllum oliviforme and C. Cawiito, Achras Sapota, 

 Bassia longifoUa, Dasyaulus neriifolius, Mimusops Elengi, and another 

 species near M. jjarvifolia, Br. Since my retm-n to Em-ope I have 

 dissected dried specimens of most of the other genera in the 

 herbaria of the Jardin des Plantes, the British Museum, and Kew, 

 and have found that the results elucidated most of the types of 

 this very peculiar family, and form a strong basis for a prelimmary 

 sketch of its morphology. Eichler, in 1876, attempted this in his 

 ' Bliithendiagramme ' (pp. 331-4), but from dried specimens only, 

 so that he left many problems untouched. Several of his inter- 

 pretations, however, are very sagacious. I may add that the 

 greater part of the substance of this pai3er was worked out in 

 Ceylon, while I have only seen Eichler' s book since my retm'n 

 home. 



Inflorescence. — This is always axillary. In Achras Sapota the 

 flowers are solitary axillary, forming by their approximation a 

 sort of leafy umbel. By carefully digging out the mass of resin 

 enveloping the terminal leaf-bud, I found that the axillary bud 

 which later forms a flower, at the time when it is a mere hemi- 

 spherical tubercle emits a pah' of lateral outgrowths, the first 

 traces of the bractlets. These, which I had before been altogether 

 unable to find, persist even in the nearly adult flower as minute, 

 elongated, subulate scales at the base of the pedicel, and are 

 caducous with the tomentum m which they are almost buried. 



In Bassia the (stipulate) leaves are succeeded towards the end 

 of the season by 3-fid bud-scales, closely imbricated. In the axil 

 of most of these is formed a flower-bud, bearing, as in Achras, 

 two lateral bractlets (delicately membranous and very caducous). 

 Either bractlet has another axillary flower-bud, which is, I believe, 

 ebracteolate. 



Mimusops, sp., has also solitary axillary flowers, but sometimes 

 its bractlets are fertfle as in Bassia. 



The other plants (/)* have all pau'ed dichasia, each cyme 



* To save repetition, I add (/) when the development was worked out on the 

 fresh specimen, {d) where only dry flowers were available. 



N. s. VOL. 7. [March, 1878.] k 



