172 cxvi. LAURINE.« (stapf). [Cryptocarya. \ 



Embryo straight; cotyledons thick, fleshy, sometimes very tightly 

 adpressed to each other and not separable ; radicle superior ; plumule 

 distinct. — Trees or shrubs, very rarely {Cassyiha) twining parasitic 

 herbs, all parts with aromatic oil glands. Leaves alternate, rarely 

 opposite or subopposite, coriaceous and evergreen, rarely membranous 

 and annual, penni veined or 3-5-nerved, usually with a distinct network 

 of veins, very rarely [Cassytha] reduced to small scales; stipules (>; 

 leaf-buds often scaly. Flowers small, greenish or yellowish, in axillary 

 or subterminal, rarely terminal, cymose or racemose inflorescences, 

 rarely solitary; bracts caducous or subpersistent, sometimes forming 

 involucres below the partial inflorescences ; bracteoles 0, except in 

 Cassytha. 



Species about 1000, in the tropics and subtropical regions ; few in Africa. 

 Cinnamomtim zeylanicum, Linn., is often cultivated for the sake of its ai'omatic 

 bark, and Persea gratissima, Gaertn., the Avocado pear, for its edible fruit, 

 Leaf-bearin<^ tre^s and shrubs. 

 Anthers 2-valved. 



Fruit fonipletely enclosed iu the persistent and 



accrescent receptacle . . . . .1. Cryptocarya. 



Fruit free ; perianth deciduous . . . .2. Tylostemon. 



Anthers 4-valved. 



Valves collateral ; ovary inferior . . .3. HYPODAriiNiS. 



Valves superposed ; ovary superior . . .4. OCOTEA. 



Leafless slender climbers .5. Cassytha. 



1. CRYPTOCARYA, 11. Br. ; Benth. et Hook. f. 

 Gen. PI. iii. 150. 



Flowers hermaphrodite. Perianth herbaceous ; receptacle ovoid to 

 turbinate or subcylindric, after flowering constricted above, persistent ; 

 lobes G, in '1 whorls, subequal, deciduous. Stamens in 4 whorls, the 

 outer 2 whorls fertile and inserted at the base of the perianth-lobes^ 

 the third fertile, and like the fourth, which is staminodial, inserted in 

 the upper part of the receptacle ; anthers 2-valved, of the two outer 

 whorls introrse, of the third extrorse ; filaments short, those of the 

 third whorl with a pair of sessile or stipitate glands at the base or in 

 front of it ; staminodes ovoid and shortly stipitate or attenuated at the 

 base. Ovary sessile, enclosed in the receptacle; style shortly exserted. 

 Fruit globose or oblong, enclosed in the enlarged indurated or somewhat 

 fleshy receptacle, smooth or longitudinally ribbed ; pericarp membranous 

 or indurated, more or less free from the receptacle. Testa membranous, 

 not or imperfectly separable from the pericarp. — Trees oi- shrubs, 

 l^eaves alternate, rarely subopposite, penninerved or 3-nerved, coria- 

 ceous. Flowers small, in subterminal or axillary panicles. 



About 40 species in the troi)ics, mostly in the Indo-Malaynn region, and inextm- 

 tropical South Africa. 



1. C. liebertiana, Engl. Jahrh. xxvi. 300, t. 10, fig. B. A tree 

 of medium size ; branches and leaves (particularly the petiole and 



