Pacouria] lxxxii. ArocYXACE.i:. 001 



1. P. owariensis. 



Laiulolpliia owariensis P. Beauv. Fl. Owar. i. p. 55, t. 34 

 <1806?); Ficalho, PI. Uteis, p. 214 (1884); VaJiea oivariemis F. 

 Muell. Extra-trop. PI. Indian ed. 1880, p. 344. 



GoLUN(;o Alto. — An evergreen, arborescent shrub, climbing to a 

 great height, milky in all its parts with a very viscid and tenacious 

 whitish juice which quickly coagulates into an elastic gum c;dkd by 

 the Muhungo negroes " Licongue " (singular) or " Macomgue '' (plural); 

 trunk 3 to 6 in. thick in the primitive forests, but in secondary woods 

 only 2 to 3 in. ; bark of the stem, branches, and branchlets l>lack ; 

 branches opposite or pseudo-ternately verticillate, patent ; branchlets 

 not uncommonly and even the peduncles transformed into woody very 

 tenacious tendrils ; leaves rigidly coriaceous, penninerved, very closely 

 venulose between the nerves, bright green, paler beneath, glossy on 

 both faces, varying in shape according to the age of the plant, some- 

 times 8 in. long, mostly 4 to 5 in. long, pendulous on the branchlets ; 

 petiole amplexicaul-sheathing at the base, the sheath beset with very 

 small interpetiolar teeth or scales ; flowers yellowi.sh, cymulose- 

 paniculate, slightly fragrant, terminal, densely clustered, met with 

 during nearly the whole year and thus not rarely accompanied by ripe 

 fruits on the same shrub ; calyx rather fleshy, elongate-obovate, 5-clef t, 

 tomentose with a cinnamon-coloured or dusky felt ; the lobes ovate, 

 obtuse, ciliate-fimbriate, imbricate in festivation and at the time of the 

 flower with the sides imbricate ; corolla when fresh whitish-reddish, 

 turning soon to a cinnamon-orange colour, hypogynous, salver-shaped ; 

 the tube twice as long as the calyx, pale brown below, a little dilated 

 or thickened and cinnamon-felted about the middle, dusky-reddish 

 above and on the rather fleshy rigid soon reflected lobes of the limb, 

 smooth and naked inside but white-pilose at the throat ; stamens 5, 

 inserted a little below the corolla-throat ; filaments pilo.se, very short , 

 anthers yellow, included, sagittate, glabrous, not appendaged, "i-celled, 

 dehiscing longitudinally ; ovary sessile, obovoid, unilocular, pluri- 

 ovulate, crowned at the apex with an elevated densely papillose ring 

 of deep-red crisp glandular hairs ; style central, cylindrical, straight, 

 glabrous, rather compressed, as high as or falling short of the stamens ; 

 stigma angular-capitate, greenish, thick, ovoid-conical, obtuse, some- 

 what bilobed ; berry like an orange in size and shape but ellipsoidal, 

 pseudo-bilocular, scrobiculate-tuberculate outside, with a rather hard 

 skin and numerous oblong-ovoid red-brownish seeds imbedded in an 

 acidulous-sweet pleasant edible viscid pulp of a white-yellowish colour. 

 In the primitive forests of Sobato Mussengue, Quilombo, Queta and 

 Bumba, in the mountainous parts of Alto Queta, in palm groves, etc., 

 sporadic ; fl. March and April 18.')5 and Oct. 1855 ; fl. and fr. June 

 185G ; ripe fr. March and April 185(;. No. 6930 and Coll. C.vki'. 71G. 

 Seeds, July 1857 ; probably this species. Coll. Caim'. 126. 



Welwitsch in his notes states that he had seen the negroes 

 collecting indiarubber from this species in the districts of Golungo 

 Alto and Cazengo, where it is by no means rare in the primeval 

 forests, and under favourable circumstances develops a stem of 4 to 

 7 in. in diameter at a height of 2 to 3 ft. above the ground, and then 

 divides into several thinner very elongated branches which are sub- 

 divided into numerous smaller opposite branchlets and climb along the 

 stems and longer branches of neighbouring trees, attaching themselves 

 by means of very tenacious spirally twisting tendrils formed of the 

 indurated flowered stalks after the fall of the ripe fruit. The older 

 branches are quite glabrous and of a blackish brown colour, though 



