XIMEXIA. 471 



hermaphrodite; calyx cupular, 4- to 5-toothed,persisteiit; petals 4-5, 

 oblong, revolute, hairy within ; stamens twice the number of the 

 petals, hypogynous ; anthers innate, linear, 2-celled. Ovary 

 sessile, superior, 4-celled ; style columnar, stigma simple ; ovules 

 solitary in each cell, pendulous, anatropous. Drupe ovoid, 1 -celled ; 

 stone solitary. There are only 4 or 5 species, one being Mexican, 

 one South African, one Bornean, one Polynesian, and one widely 

 dispersed through the tropics of both hemispheres. 



X. Americana, Lin. Spec, 497. AVilldenow, Species Plantarum, 

 ii., p. 230. Eoxb., Flor. Ind., ii., p. 252. Wight and Arnott, Prodr., 

 i., p. 89. Miquel, Flor. Ind. Bot., i., pt. i., p. 787. Syn., X. Russell- 

 iana, Wall. Cat., 6784. Found both in the east and west of the 

 Indian peninsula, Circar mountains, Andaman Isles, Malacca, 

 Ceylon, Malayan Archipelago, tropical Africa and America. 

 This shrub is about 15 feet in height ; the branches are spreading, 

 spinose, glabrous, covered with a red astringent bark, and often 

 ending in a spine. Young shoots angular. Leaves IJ inch by 1 

 inch and upwards, coriaceous, 'glabrous, ovate-oblong or roundish, 

 emarginate, base rounded, veination conduplicate. Petiole | inch. 

 Flowers J inch, bisexual, sometimes polygamous, white, greenish- 

 yellow inside, very fragrant, in short racemes, which are axillary 

 or on the ends of thickened contracted shoots. Kachis terete, 

 4- to 6-tlowered. Bractes minute. Buds oblong, acute. Calyx 

 minute. Petals many times larger than the calyx, equal to the 

 stamens in length. The fruit is yellow, about the size of a 

 pigeon's egg, of a somewhat acid sweet taste, and is eaten by the 

 natives. The wood also is odoriferous, and is used in Western India 

 as a substitute for santal wood. 



Va7\ a, ovata. D.C., Prodr., i., p. 533. Syn., X. multiflora, 

 Jacquin, Stirpium Americanarum Historia, p. 106, t. 277, 

 f. 3L Lam. 111., t. 297, f. 1. :N'ative of the West Indies 

 and Brazil. Petals greenish ; fruit yellow, drupaceous ; 

 leaves ovate. 



Var. /3, ohlonga. D.C., Prodr., i., p. 533. Syn. Hcymassoli 

 spinosa, Aublet, Hist, des Plantes de la Guiane Francaise, 

 i., p. 324, t. 125. Lam. 111., t. 297, f. 2. Leaves oblong. 

 Native of Guiana. 



X. elliptica, Forster, Floruit insularum australium prodromus, 

 No. 162. Native of New Caledonia, the Fiji and other islands of 



