RHAMNACEX. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. rea 
RHAMNIDIUM. 
FLowenrs perfect ; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes valvate in estivation ; petals 5, rarely 0; 
ovary immersed in the disk, free, 2-celled ; ovules solitary. Fruit drupaceous, 1-seeded, 
the seed destitute of albumen; cotyledons fleshy. 
Rhamnidium, Reissek, Martius Fl. Brasil. xi., i. 94. — 
Grisebach, Cat. Pl. Cub. 32. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. 
i. 378. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. vi. 74. —Sargent, Garden and 
Forest, iv. 16. 
Small trees or shrubs, with slender unarmed terete branches covered with lenticels. Leaves oppo- 
site or obliquely opposite, oblong or ovate, entire, short-petioled, feather-veined; stipules minute, 
deciduous. Flowers in axillary simple or dichotomously branched cymes. Calyx turbinate or broadly 
Disk 
broad and fleshy, filling the tube of the calyx. Petals inserted under its free margin, hooded and 
unguiculate; or wanting. Stamens five, inserted under the margin of the disk between the lobes 
of the calyx; filaments subulate ; anthers oblong, introrse, attached on the back below the middle, two- 
celled, the contiguous cells opening longitudinally. Ovary subglobose ; style short and thick; stigma 
two-lobed ; ovules ascending from the base of the cells, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle inferior. 
obconical, the lobes triangular, acute, erect or spreading, crested on the inner surface, deciduous. 
Fruit elliptical or subrotund, supported on the tube of the calyx and tipped with the remnants of the 
persistent style; sarcocarp thin, dry, or fleshy; putamen membranaceous or thick and crustaceous, 
Em- 
bryo filling the cavity ; cotyledons thick and fleshy, obovate or elliptical; radicle very short, inferior.’ 
usually one-celled by abortion, one-seeded. Seeds ellipsoidal, compressed ; testa membranaceous. 
Rhamnidium is confined to the warmer regions of the New World. Three species occur in south- 
ern Brazil;? and four are West Indian.’ Of these, one reaches the southern coast of Florida. 
The name, formed from pduvos and ¢idoc, indicates the relationship of these plants with Rhamnus. 
leaves and thicker-walled stones. 
1 Rhamnidium was established for a group of Brazilian shrubs These appear to unite our Flor- 
with indehiscent fruit distinguished by a very thin outer coat be- 
coming dry at maturity, and by the thin membranaceous walls of 
the stone ; with exalbuminous seeds having thick and fleshy cotyle- 
The fruit is described 
as baccate, but is more properly drupaceous, the putamen, although 
dons, and with prominently veined leaves. 
thin, being clearly defined. With these Grisebach joined three or 
four West Indian shrubs with thicker less prominently veined 
ida tree with the Brazilian species, in spite of the fact that its 
flowers are apetalous. In other genera of Rhamnacee, however, 
some species are furnished with petals, while others are destitute of 
them. 
2 Reissek, Martius Fl. Brasil. xi., i. 94, 95, t. 24, f. 11, 12, 13, t. 
25, f. 1, t. 31. 
3 Grisebach, Cat. Pl. Cub. 32. 
