112 



Oeder XIII. BIXINEiE (by Prof. Oliver). 



Plowers regular, hermaphrodite or 1-sexual. Sepals 3-8, free or united 

 below, imbricate or rarely subvalvate in sestivation. Petals as many as the 

 sepals or numerous or wanting, imbricate or contorted. Stamens hypogy- 

 nous, indefinite ; anthers 2-locular, dehiscing longitudinally or by terminal 

 slits. Torus with or without a thickened disk. Ovary free, 1-celled or with 

 the walls intruded so as to be spuriously multilocular ; placentas usually 

 2-0O, with many or few, more or less anatropous ovules. Eruit capsular or 

 baccate, separating into as many valves as placentas or indehiscent. Seeds 

 few or many, usually with fleshy albumen, and an axile embryo with broad 

 cotyledons. — Trees or shrubs, sometimes armed with axillary spines. Leaves 

 alternate, simple. Stipules minute or 0. Flowers axillary or terminal or 

 from the old wood, solitary, fascicled, racemose or panicled, in some of the 

 petaloid genera large and showy ; in the dicecious genera insignificant. 



Bixinece are chiefly confined to the tropics. Of the following seven genera, two are 

 eademic; Bixa is not indigenous, Cochlosperinum extends to S. America and Australia, 

 Flacourtia is also Indian, and Oncoba, as here limited, embraces some S. American species. 

 There are four other genera of the Order peculiar to south extratropical Africa, aud one to 

 Madagascar and the islands of the Indian Ocean. 

 Flowers hermaphrodite, ample. Petals unappendaged. Anthers 

 dehiscing by terminal slits or pores. 



Anthers straight, dehiscing by apical slits. Endocarp separable . 1. Cochlospekmum. 



Anthers folded back upon themselves, dehiscing by transverse 



slits at the apical fold 2. Bixa. 



Flowers hermaphrodite or 1-sexual. Petals present. Anthers de- 

 hiscing longitudinally. 



Petals 5-co, unappendaged 3. Oncoba. 



Petals 4-7, with hairy adnate scale within 7- Dasylepis. 



Flowers hermaphrodite. Petals 4. Ludia, 



Flowers dioecious. Petals 0. 



Calyx-lobes imbricate 5. Flacourtja, 



Calyx-lobes scarcely imbricate. Seeds more or less hairy . . 6. Aberia. 



1. COCHLOSPERMUM, Kunth ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PI. i. 124. 



Flowers hermaphrodite. Calyx of 5 unequal, imbricate sepals. Petals 5, 

 large, contorted-imbricate in sestivation. Stamens indefinite, free, with ob- 

 long or linear anthers, opening by a short pore-like slit at the apex, on .t.he 

 inner face. Ovary 1-celled, with 3-5 projecting, multiovulate placentas. 

 Style undivided, slender. Stigma simple, obtuse or minutely toothed. 

 Capsule somewhat papery, separating into 3-5 valves when ripe, each valve 

 alternating with a corresponding valve of the subniembranous endocarp. 

 Seeds numerous, reniform or spirally twisted, covered or fringed with long, 

 cottony hairs ; testa horny ; embryo curved. — Shrubs or trees, affording a 

 yellow dye. Leaves alternate, palmately-lobed in the African species. 

 Flowers showy, yellow, pedicellate, fascicled, racemose or panicled, either 

 terminal or from the upper axils or from the old wood of the stock. 



A genus of 10-12 species, growing in tropical and subtropical countries both of the Old 

 aud New "World. 

 Leaves not divided more than halfway to the base, paler aud uniformly 



pubescent beneath ; segments not overlapping at the base .... 1. C. iinctorium. 



