290 



FLORA OF JAMAICA 



Bernardia 



10. BERNARDIA Adans. 



r ' Shrubs (or herbs) with stellate or simple hairs. Leaves 

 alternate, dentate. Flowers moncecious or dioecious, without 

 petals, in axillary spikes. Spikes sometimes very short, of both 

 male and female flowers densely ci'owded with overlapping 

 bracts. Male flowers usually minute, the female sometimes with 

 a few bracts. Petals none. Disk none, or of separate glands. 

 Male flowers : Calyx in the bud globose and closed, valvately 

 3— 4-parted in flowering. Stamens indefinite (3-25) ; filaments 



Fig. 94. — Bernardia carpinifolia Griseb. 



A, Portion of branch with leaves 0, Stamens x 11. 



• — ' and male inflorescence in bud D, Female flower X 7. 



X ii. E, Coccus with seed X 3. 



B, Male flower X 9. F, *^eed X 3. 



free ; anthers, as it were, 4-celled crosswise, each cell being 

 2-globose. No rudiment of ovary. Female flowers : Sepals 6 

 (5-9), imbricate. Ovary 3-celled ; styles 3, cut into numerous 

 thread-Kke segments (in Jamaican species); ovules solitary. 

 Capsule splitting up into three 2-valved cocci. Seeds subglobose, 

 without a caruncle. 



Species nearly 40, natives of tropical and subtropical America. 



B. carpinifolia Griseh. Fl. Br. W. Ind. 45 (1859). B. fruti- 

 cosa foliis tomentosis itc. Broicne Hist. Jam. 361. B. dichotoma 



