104 ANACARDIACEZ. [Corynocarpus. 
OrprErR XX. ANACARDIACEZ£. 
Trees or shrubs, often exuding a resinous and usually acrid juice. 
Leaves alternate, simple or compound, exstipulate. Flowers regular, 
small, hermaphrodite, unisexual or polygamous. Calyx 3—d-partite, 
imbricate. Petals 3-7, rarely wanting, free, perigynous, imbricate. 
Dise usually annular or cup-shaped, entire or lobed. Stamens as 
many or twice as many as the petals, inserted under or upon the 
disc ; filaments usually free; anthers 2-celled. Ovary superior, 
usually 1-celled, sometimes 2-5-celled, very rarely of 2-5 free 
carpels; styles 1-3; ovules solitary in the cells, either pendulous 
from the top or wall or from a basal funicle. Fruit superior or 
very rarely half-inferior, usually a 1—d-celled 1—5-seeded drupe. 
Seed exalbuminous; embryo straight or curved, cotyledons usually 
fleshy, radicle short. 
A large order of nearly 50 genera and about 450 species, chiefly tropical. in 
its distribution, rare in temperate regions. It includes several edible species, as 
the mango (probably the best of the tropical fruits), the hog-plum (Spondias), 
the Pistachia nut, &c. Some species of Rhus and other genera secrete a more 
or less poisonous and acrid juice; others produce valuable varnishes. The 
single New Zealand genus is endemic. 
1. CORYNOCARPUS, Forst. 
A tree, everywhere perfectly glabrous. Leaves large, alternate 
simple and entire. Flowers small, greenish, in terminal branched 
panicles. Calyx 5-lobed; lobes rounded, imbricate. Petals 5 
rounded, erose, imbricate. Disc fleshy, 5-lobed. Stamens 5, in- 
serted on the disc, alternating with as many petaloid staminodia. 
Ovary sessile, ovoid, 1-celled, narrowed into an erect style; stigma 
capitate; ovule solitary, pendulous from near the top of the cell. 
Drupe large, obovoid, obtuse, fleshy ; endocarp forming a coriaceous 
and fibrous network round the seed. Seed pendulous; testa mem- 
branous, adhering to the cavity of the cell; embryo thick; cotyle- 
dons plano-convex ; radicle minute, superior. 
A genus consisting of a single species, peculiar to New Zealand. It is a 
somewhat doubtful member of the Anacardiace@, as it wants the resin-canals so 
characteristic of the family, and also differs in the andreecium. Professor 
Engler, in ‘‘Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien,”’ has proposed that it should 
form the separate order Corynocarpacee. 
1. C. levigata, Forst. Char. Gen. 31, t. 16.—A handsome 
leafy tree 30-40 ft. high, with a trunk i-2ft. diam. or more. 
Leaves 3-8in. long, elliptic-oblong or oblong-obovate, subacute, 
narrowed into a short stout petiole, thick and coriaceous, dark- 
green and glossy; margins slightly recurved. Panicles 4-8 in. 
long, broad, rigid, erect, much branched. Flowers small, 4in. 
diam., on short stout pedicels. Petals concave, barely exceeding 
the calyx-lobes. Filaments stout, subulate. Ovary small, gla- 
brous. Drupe 1-14 in. long, orange.—A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 365 ; 
A. Cunn. Precur. nu. 688; Raoul, Choix, 50; Bot. Mag. t. 4879; 
