FycuantfmsJ] 



CXIV. MYRISTICACE^ (sTAPF). 



157 



1. PrCXAXTIIUS. 



Moreover, very little has since been added to our collections of African Mi/rinlicacecs, 

 and they are still one of the most imperfectly known families of the African floras. 

 Their often considerable height, their dicecism and their inconspicuous flowers 

 account probably for their neglect by the collectors ; but as the seeds of some of 

 them are enormously rich in vegetable fat, and others yield serviceable timber, more 

 attention might be paid to them even from a purely economic point of view- 

 Endosperm ruminate ; lateral nerves always conspicuous. 

 Leaves with 15-60 parallel, usually very marked 

 lateral nerves on each side ; mnle flower-beads 

 or umbels not supported by a disk-like base of 

 an early deciduous involucre of bracts ; seeds 

 solid in the centre. 

 Male flowers sessile, -^ lin. long, in small heads, 

 loosely clustered or congested on the secondary 

 brandies of more or less divaricate i)!«niclos; 

 anthers 2-4 ; fruit oblong ; aril laciniate ; 

 rumitiation-folds intruding radially . 

 Male flowers distinctly pedicelled, 1^-2 lin. long, 

 in small capituliform umbels, which are solitary 

 or crowded into globose heads on the primary 

 branches of very reduced panicles ; anthers 

 6-10; fruit much depressed; aril entire; ru- 

 mination-folds starting from near the chalaza 

 (that is, descending from near the top) . 

 Leaves with 7-10 very slender curved lateral nerves 

 on each side ; male umbels supported by the disk- 

 like base of the early deciduous involucre of 

 bracts; seed with a longitudinal cavity in the 



centre 



Endosperm not ruminate; lateral nerves faint. 



Leaves concoloi'ous ; flower-heads almost sessile, in 

 the leaf -axils, solitary, or in small clusters; aril 



entire 4. Staudtia. 



Leaves dark green above, pale to silvery grey below ; 

 flower-heads distant on the branches of a panicle ; 

 aril laciniate 5. Cepualosph^ra. 



2. ScrpnocEPnALiuM. 



3. CCELOCARYON. 



1. PYCNANTHUS, Warb. in Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. xiii. 

 Generalvers.-Heft, DA. 



Male flowers : Perianth obovoicl or shortly clavate, o-4-partite. 

 Filaments united into a slender column ; anthers small, 2-4, adnata to 

 the apex of the column, exserted from the perianth. Female flower: 

 Perianth as in the male. Stigma sessile, indistinct. Fruit medium- 

 sized ; pericarp thick, fleshy, dehiscent ; aril laciniate. Seed oblong, 

 testa thin ; endosperm ruminate, replete with fat, but destitute of 

 starch (or almost so) ; rumination-folds intruding radially. Cotyledons 

 free almost to the base, suberect. — Leaves more or less chartaceous, 

 cordate at the base, glaucous beneath, with numerous subhorizontal 

 lateral nerves and faint subparallel transverse veins. Inflorescences 

 panicled, divaricate with clustered or more or less scattered heads of 

 minute sessile flowers. 



