NYCTAGINACESA., 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
109 
PISONIA. 
FLoweErs perfect, diccious or rarely monecious; calyx 5-lobed or toothed, the 
divisions induplicate-valvate in estivation; corolla 0; stamens usually 5-8; ovary 
superior, l-celled; ovule solitary. Fruit a utricle inclosed in the thickened perianth. 
Leaves opposite or alternate, without stipules. 
Pisonia, Linneus, Gen. 42 (1737). — Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 
265.— A. L.de Jussieu, Gen. 91. — Endlicher, Gen. 
312. — Meisner, Gen. 318. — Schlechtendal, Linnea, xxi. 
608. — Baillon, Hist. Pl. iv. 20 (excl. Neeaw). — Benthant 
& Hooker, Gen. iii. 9.— Engler & Prantl, Pfanzenfam. 
iii. pt. i. 29. 
Calpidia, Du Petit-Thouars, Hist. Vég. Isles Austr. Afr. 
ii. 23, t. 8 (1806). 
Torrubia, Vellozo, Fl. Flum. 139; Icon. iii. t. 150 (1825). 
Bessera, Vellozo, F7. Flum. 147; Icon. iv. t. 2 (1825). 
Pallavia, Vellozo, Fl. Flum. 151; Icon. iv. t. 12 (1825). 
Columella, Vellozo, Fl. Flum. 155 ; Icon. iv. t. 17 (1825). 
Cephalotomandra, Karsten, Linnea, xxviii. 429 (1856). — 
Bentham & Hooker, Gen. iii. 10. 
Timeroya, Montrousier, Mém. Acad. Imp. Sci. Lyon, x. 
247 (1860). 
Vieillardia, Brongniart & Gris, Bull. Soc. Bot. France, viii. 
375 (1861) ; Ann. Sci. Nat. sér. 5, i. 340. 
Glabrous or pubescent trees or shrubs, unarmed or rarely spinescent, erect, or sometimes semi- 
scandent. Leaves opposite or alternate, oblong-oval or lanceolate, entire, sessile or short-petiolate, 
persistent. Flowers small, green or yellow, in subsessile or pedunculate cymes, their branches 
subtended by small bracts, short-pedicellate, the pedicels bibracteolate and produced in the axils of 
minute bracts. Calyx petaloid, tubular or funnel-shaped in the staminate flower, elongated and often 
enlarged at the base of the tube in the pistillate flower, the limb five-lobed or toothed, the divisions 
short, plaited in the bud, erect or spreading. Stamens five to thirty, usually five to eight, inserted on 
the base of the calyx under the ovary, introrse, exserted; minute or rudimentary in the unisexual 
pistillate flower ; filaments filiform, unequal, free or united at the base into a tube or ring, folded in 
the bud; anthers oblong, attached on the back below the middle, two-celled, the cells parallel, opening 
longitudinally. Ovary oblong-ovoid, sessile, one-celled, gradually narrowed into a slender terminal or 
sublateral style included or exserted ; stigma capitate, laciniate or fimbriate; ovule solitary, rising from 
the base of the cell on a short funicle, campylotropous ; micropyle inferior. Fruit anthocarpous, 
crowned with the persistent teeth of the calyx, coriaceous or indurate, rarely fleshy, oblong-linear or 
clavate, cylindrical, compressed or pentagonal, terete, sulcate or costate, smooth, tuberculate or 
furnished with stipitate viscid glands; utricle elongated, membranaceous. Seed erect, the thin trans- 
parent testa connate with the endocarp. Embryo erect; cotyledons unequal, thin, broad, cordate at 
the base, or at the base and apex, cortortuplicate, folded round the scanty soft albumen; radicle short, 
, inferior turned toward the hilum. 
Pisonia is tropical, and of the sixty species’ which are distinguished the larger number are found in 
the New World. It is represented in southern Asia, the Indian Archipelago, Australia, New Zealand, 
and the islands of the Pacific by a few species, and in Africa by Pisonia aculeata,’ a shrub with 
1 Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et Spec. ii. 217.— 
Kunth, Syn. Pl. quin. ii. 19.— Blume, Biydr. Fl. Ned. Ind. 
734. — Miquel, Fl. Ind. Bat. i. pt. i. 989.— Choisy, De Candolle 
Prodr. xiii. pt. ii. 440. — Hooker f. Fl. New Zealand, i. 209; Fi. 
Brit. Ind. iv. 710.—Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 70; Cat. Pl. 
Cub. 24, 283.— Bentham, Fi. Austral. v. 279.—J. A. Schmidt, 
Martius Fl. Brasil. xiv. pt. ii. 351. — Baker, Fl. Maur. and Seych. 
262.— Kurz, Forest Fl. Brit. Burm. ii. 278.— Hemsley, Bot. Biol. 
Am. Cent. iii. 8. — Hillebrand, Fl. Haw. Is. 367.— Warburg, Bot. 
Jahrb. xiii. 303 (Papuan. Fi.). 
2 Linneus, Spec. 1026 (1753). — Miller, Dict. ed. 8, No. 1.— 
Poiret, Lam. Ill. iii. 449, t. 861. — Choisy, J. c. — Nuttall, Sylva, 
