303 



Liberia.* On the other hand, the generic affinity of my 

 Polyadoa (?) Simii\ is still very doubtful ; it may after all be 

 a Pleiocarpa. 



Picmlima comprises, therefore, at present, P. Klaineana, 

 r. umbellata, P. Elliotii, and a fourth, species from Liberia.f 

 t\ Klaineana was recorded in the Flora of Tropical Africa from 

 the Gameroons, Gaboon, and the Congo Free State. Specimens 

 referable to this species have since been received at Kew from the 

 troid _ Coast i (Johnson, 917) and Uganda (Da we, 707, and 709), and 

 considerably extend our knowledge of its area. The large flower, 

 and, m the young state, semi-coalescent carpels, as well as the 

 peculiar fruit, of the type of the genus, seemed to indicate a 

 somewhat isolated position in Plumerieae ; but with P. umbellata 

 ptt Elllotn thr own into it the position of Picralima as an ally 

 ot Munteria seems to be satisfactorily established. 



The fruit of P. umbellata consists of two globose, yellow 

 mencarps, very slightly flattened at the base where they* meet, 

 and supported by the small persistent calyx. They measure up 

 to ,5-o cm. m diameter. The pericarp is fleshv, 4-6 mm. thick, 

 traversed by scattered bast fibres and full of a latex, which, 

 in specimens preserved in spirit, oozes out as a semi-liquid, 

 gelatinous, colourless mass when the rind is pricked. The same 

 suhstance also surrounds the 10-12 seeds, which are separated 



more 



The seeds 



are compressed, broad-oblong, 14-16 mm. long and up to 8 mm. 

 oroad. The testa is sub-coriaceous, whitish, and conspicuously 

 nerved, the nerves ascending obliquely and branching in the 

 upper part. The endosperm is fleshy, and the embryo, which 



18 f i 5* ^ mm ' lon ^' cons * sts of two thin, foliaceous, ovate-elliptic 

 cotyledons and a cylindric radicle of the same length as the 

 cotyledons. 



Holalafia. 



indo-Malayan genera, as Vallaris, Ltjonsia, Parsonsia, and Beau- 

 monha, and was not known to occur among the African members 

 ot that tribe until the discovery of Holalafia. This genus was 

 described by me in the Kew Bulletin for 1894, p. 123, and 

 subsequently figured in Hooker's Icones Plantarum, tab. 2350, 

 trom flowering specimens. In the Indo- Malayan syncarpous 

 genera already mentioned this character applies to all species, and 

 the genera themselves differ from the allied apocarpous genera 

 in numerous other respects. It is otherwise in Holalafia. I have 







{Book 



H. multitl 



corresponds nearly with Alafia landolphioides in the general 

 racies and in the form of the inflorescence, and it was merely the 

 apparently generic value of the principal distinctive character, the 

 syncarpy of the ovary, which induced me to separate Holalafia 

 muUiflora generically from Alafia. Since then we have received, 

 hrst through the kindness of Mr. P. H. Mamlen, of Liverpool, 

 an £ * lleu from M*- Pynaert, of Eala, in the Congo Free State, 

 sufficient material to describe both the development of the fruit 

 up to the dissemination of the seeds and the seeds themselves. 



* Stapf in Johnston, Liberia, p. 622. 

 t Stapf I.e. p. 624. 



32998 



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