LXXXIV. APOCYNACE^ (sTAPF). 25 



Fruit entire, baccate, drupaceous, samaroid or consisting of 2 (rarely 3- 

 5) baccate or follicular mericarps, rarely breaking up into 2 or 4 valves. 

 Seeds various, frequently compressed, very often with a tuft of hairs 

 (coma) at one or both ends, or winged, rarely with a plumose 

 apical or basal awn ; testa coriaceous, crustaceous or membranous. 

 Endosperm, if present, cartilaginous or fleshy. Embryo straight ; 

 cotyledons usually flat, rarely convolute or contortuplicate ; radicle 

 superior. — Trees, erect or scandent shrubs or perennial (very rarely 

 annual) herbs, more or less laticiferous. Leaves simple, generally 

 opposite, sometimes whorled, rarely spirally arranged, entire, pinnati- 

 nerved. Stipules, if present, short, intrapetiolar, and often joining 

 around the stem in a transverse ridge, very rarely one on each side of 

 the petiole, or represented by spines. Inflorescences made up of (often 

 much reduced) cymes, terminal or pseudolateial or truly axillary ; 

 cymes solitary or clustered or gathered in loose or congested, often 2-3- 

 tomous, panicles, corymbs or pseudo- umbels; bracts usually small and 

 deciduous. Flowers small to large and then often very showy. 



The number of new genera and species of ttds order described since tin? publica- 

 tion of Hentham and Hooker's Genera Pbintarura (1876) is very gre.it. This has 

 entailed the revisiion of the genera and of their arrangement, -.md the introduction of 

 a more detailed description of the remiirkahly polymorphic fertilisation apparatus. 

 Of the 3 tribes here admitted, the TaherncemontanoidecE and Echiloidece correspond 

 almos'. exactly to the sul)tribe of Taberncemontanece, Kenth. (Taberncemontanince, 

 K. Schtim.) and the tribe of J^chitidece, Benth. {EchitoidecB, K. Schum.) respectively. 

 Both Hre very homogeneous groups. The remainder of the genera are much h s» 

 obviously connected. Bi ntham referred these to CarUsem and Plumeriefi, in which 

 l;(tter he included also the TaberncemontnnecB^ whilst Schumann un.ted both tr.bes 

 in his Plumerioidece. As the principal character (namely, the syncarpous or 

 apocarpous ovary) separating Carissece and PlumeriecB has lost, in the light of new 

 discov er.es, much of the impcn-tance formerly attributed to it, 1 have preferred to 

 abandon it as a primary distinction, and to adopt Schumann's tribe Plumerioidea-, 

 cxchuling his TaberncBtnontanince. Among the TaberncEmontanoidecB the genus 

 TahenicBmontana had grown, by the jiddition of numerous (often imperfectly 

 known) speci< s, into an assembly of most incongruous typt-s. With the alternatives 

 of reducing all the Taberna:mo)ilanoidecB to one genus or breaking up Tabemamon- 

 tana into several genera, as already })roposed by Perre and Schumann, 1 decided 

 in favour of the latter as being the o.dy way of obtaining genera approximately 

 equivaleut to those composing tlie two o'her tribes. One result of the study of the 

 Taberncemoiitanoidece of both hemispheres was the exclusion of Tabernamonfanff 

 Irom the Old World. 



Tribe I. Plumerioldeae. — Corolla salver-shaped, rarely fuunel-shaped ; 

 lobes overlapping to I he left, rarely to the right. Anthers linear, oblong 

 or elliptic, shortly and obtusely 2-lobed {rarely sub-sagittate) at the base ; 

 anther-cells polliniferous and dehiscing to the base or nearly so, not diverging 

 beloiv. Ovary syncarpous, l-2-oelled, or apocarpous tvith 2 (rarely 3-5) free or 

 partly connate carpels ; stigma various, usually distinctly apiculate, rarely hairy 

 or with frill-like appendages, often exuding more or less glutinous matter and 

 then sometimes sticking to the anthers in the d>y state, otherwise free. Fruit 

 baccate, drupaceous or dry and follicular. Seeds not comose, exarillate ; endosperm 

 {if any) smooth, rarely grooved and ruminate. Cotyledons Jlut. 

 *Ovary syncarpous. 1-2-celled. 



Corolla 8al\er-sh;tped ; tiuit bac(ate. 



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RESOURCES 



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