BURSERACE^. 



SIZVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



95 



BURSERA. 



Floweks polygamous ; calyx 4 or 5-parted, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; 

 petals 4 or 5, imbricated m estivation. Fruit, a drupe with valvate epicarp. Leaves 

 compound, alternate. 



Bursera, Jacquin, St^ry. An.. 94. - Linn.us, Gen. ed. 6, (excl. Protiu^, Marirjnia, and /.'..). - 



174. - A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 372. - Meisner, Gen. 11. _ dolle Monogr. Phaner. iv 36 



Endheher, Gen.^ 1136. - Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 324 Elaphriuzn. Jacqnb, Stirp. Anu i. 105, t 71. 

 (excl. Mar^gn^a and Icica.). - BaiUon, Hist. PL v. 309 Gen. 11. -Endlieher, Gen 1136 



Engler, De Can- 



Meisner, 



Trees, witli balsamic resinous juices. Leaves destitute of stipules, membranaceous, often confined 

 the ends of the branches, unequally pinnate, or three or rarely one-foliolate ; the rhachis terete, some- 

 times ymged ; leaflets opposite, petiolulate, entire or subserrate. Flowers small the pedicels fascicled 

 or rarely sohtary, in short elongated lateral simple or branched panicles. Calyx minute, membranaceous, 

 the lobes much shorter than the ovate-oblong petals inserted on the base of the annular crenate disk 

 and reflexed at maturity above the middle. Stamens eight to ten, inserted on the base of the disk • 

 filaments free, subulate ; anthers oblong, attached on the back above the base, introrse, t;yo-celled the 

 cells opening longitudinally ; usually effete m the pistillate flower. Ovary free, sessile, ovoid, three- 

 celled J rndmientary in the staminate flower. Style short ; stigma capitate, obtuse, three-lobed • ovules 

 t^'O in each cell, suspended below the apex from the central angle, collateral, anatropous ; micropyle 

 superior ; raphe ventral. Drupe globose or oblong-obliqne, indistinctly three-angled ; epicarp coriaceo- 

 camose, two or three-valved ; nutlets one to three, usually soHtary, or when more than one, closely 

 united, adnate to a persistent fleshy axis, one-celled, one-seeded, covered with a thin membranaceous 

 coat. Seed ovoid, destitute of albumen; testa membranaceous; hilum ventral, below the apex. Em- 

 bryo straight j cotyledons foliaceous, contortuplicate ; racbcle short, superior. 



Bursera is Mexican, Central and South American, and West IncHan, with a single species reaching 

 the shores of southern Florida. About forty species^ are described, of which more than half belong to 

 the warmer regions of Mexico.^ Four or five species grow in the West Indies,^ and eight or nine^are 

 scattered over Central* and South America from Guatemala to VenezueV Brazil," and Peru.^ The 

 plants of this genus have few properties useful to man. It was estabhshed by Jacquin, and named in 

 honor of Joachim Burser,^ a German botanist and physician of the seventeenth century. 



1 De Candolle, Prodr. ii. 78. — Eiigler, De Candolle Monogr. 

 Phaner. iv. 37. 



2 Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. vii. 20, t. 

 Gil, 612. — Schlechtendai, Linnma, xvi. S23 ; xvii. 245, 625. — 

 Bentham, Bot. Sulphur, ii. t. 8. — Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. v. 155 ; 

 xvii. 230. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 177. — Watson, Proc. 

 Am. Acad. xxi. 421 ; xxii. 402, 469 ; xxiv. 43. — Brandegee, Proc. 

 Cal. Acad. ser. 2, ii. 138. 



3 Richard, Fl. Cub. 389. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 173; 

 Cat. PI. Cub. 65. 



* Triana & Planchon, Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 5, xiv. 302. 

 ^ Eiigler, De Candolle Monogr. Phaner. 41. 



« Engler, Martins FL Brasil. xii. 2, 251. 



' Triana & I'lanchoa, I. c. 303. 



e Joachim Burser (1593-1649) ; a native of Camentz in Upper 

 Lusatia, a disciple of Kaspar Bauhln, the botanist of Basel, and 

 himself a distinguished physician and botanist, and professor of 

 physic and medicine in the academy of Sortie in Denmark. The 

 catalogue of his herbarium, gathered in numerous journeys, espe- 

 cially in the Alps and Pyrenees, and preserved in the University of 

 Upsala, was prepared by Peter Martin, and published in 1724 in 

 the Transactions of the Academy of Upsala, under the title of Cat- 

 alogus Plantarum Novarum Joachini Burseri. 



