EUPHORBIACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



29 



GYMNANTHES. 



Flowers monoecious or rarely dioecious ; calyx rudimentary or ; corolla ; 



stamens 2 or rarely 3 ; disk ; ovary 3-celled ; ovule solitary in each cell, suspended. 



Fruit a 3-lobed capsule splitting into three 2-valved cocci. Leaves alternate, stipulate, 

 persistent. 



Gymnanthes, Swartz, Prodr. 95 (1788). — Endlicher, Gen. 



Suppl. ii. 87 ; iv. pt. iii. 87 (Gymnanthus). — Baillon, 



iii. 337. — Pax, Engler & Prantl PfianzenfaTn. iii. pt. v. 



101. 



Btvde Gen. Euphorb. 530. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. Excoecaria, Baillon, Hist. PL v. 227 (in part) (1874). 



Glabrous trees or shrubs, with milky juices and slender terete branchlets. Leaves alternate, 

 petiolate, entire or crenulate-serrate, coriaceous, penniveined, persistent ; stipules membranaceous, 

 minute, caducous. Inflorescence-buds covered with closely imbricated chestnut-brown scales, length- 

 ening in anthesis, bearing in the upper axils numerous three-branched clusters of staminate flowers, 

 their branches furnished with minute ovate bracts, and from the lower axils two or three long-stalked 



pistillate flowers. Perianth of the staminate flower 



wanting. Stamens two or rarely three 



filaments filiform, declinate in anthesis, inserted on the slightly enlarged torus, free or slightly connate 

 at the base ; anthers attached on the back below the middle, erect, ovoid, two-celled, the cells parallel. 



opening longitudinally. Perianth of the pistillate flower reduced to three bract-like scales. 



Ovary 



ovate, three-celled, narrowed into three recurved styles free or slightly united at the base, stigmatic on 

 their inner face j ovule solitary in each cell, suspended from its inner angle, anatropous ; raphe ventral ; 



micropyle extrorse, superior ; the obdurator 



larged cup-like growth from the funicle only slightly 



developed- Capsule three-lobed, separating from the persistent axis into three two-valved cocci, dehiscent 



on the dorsal and partly on the ventral suture. 



Seed 



d 



or 



bglobose 



strophiolate, or 



r 



rely 



.ked 



membranaceous 



Embryo erect in thick fleshy alb 



'tyledons foHa 



ceous, broad and flat, much longer than the superior radicle. 



About ten species ^ of Gymnanthes are distributed from southern Florida, where one species occurs, 

 through the West Indies to Mexico ^ and Brazil.^ 



Gymnanthes produces hard, durable, and sometimes handsome wood, but is not known to possess 



other useful properties. 



The generic name, from yv^vog and dvOog^ relates to the structure of the naked flowers. 



1 Bentham & Hooker, Gen. iii. 337. 



2 Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. iii. 136 



(Sebastiania) 



