60 MR HIERN, ON EBENACE.E. 



rarely in a fragmentary state at its base; white, flesh-coloured, greenish, or yellow, never 

 blue ; lobes equal, obtuse or rounded or in some species acute, usually spreading or reflexed 

 in full flower, contorted sinistrorsely in aestivation as regarded from inside except Diospyros 

 oocarpa in which the aestivation is variously imbricated and except the new genus Tetraclis 

 in which the aestivation is valvate. 



Stamens in male flowers all fertile, hypogynous or more commonly inserted at or near 

 the base of the corolla-tube or by exception about the middle of the corolla in Diospyros 

 Dendo and some at the middle of the corolla in D. Cunalon; often in two rows or com- 

 bined by their filaments in pairs or otherwise ; the inner ones usually shorter, or subequal ; 

 varying in number from 3 to about 100, the average or common number being 10 in 

 Royena, 16 in Euclea and Diospyros, 9 in Maba and 30 in Tetraclis; when equal in number 

 to the lobes of the corolla alternating with them. Anthers usually lanceolate linear or oblong, 

 hairy or glabrous, erect, attached by their base, free, 2-celled, dehiscing at their sides by 

 longitudinal slits or rarely by apical pores ; pollen globular or ellipsoidal, smooth ; connective 

 usually produced at the apex beyond the anthers, apiculate, often hairy; filaments usually 

 shorter than the anthers, glabrous or hairy, compressed or filiform. Staminodes in female 

 flowers without anthers or barren, often glabrous, sometimes absent. 



Ovary in male flower abortive or absent ; in female flower free, sessile, subglobose ovoid 

 or conical (or " stipitato-constricted at base" in Diospyros Diepenhorstii), not lobed, syncarpous, 

 without a disk, hairy or glabrous, 2-16-celled, usually 3- or 6-celled in the genus Maba, 

 4-celled in Euclea, 4-, 6-, 8- or 10-celled in Royena, and 4-, 8- or 10-celled in Diospyros, 

 never with 5 or an odd number of cells except 3 ; cells 1-ovuled, or 2-ovuled in the section 

 Ferreola of Maba and in the section Cargillia of Diospyros; the septa however are some- 

 times incomplete, especially in the lower part, and the alternate ones, namely, those opposite 

 the styles or lobes of the style, are often thinner. Styles 1 5, distinct or connate at 

 the base ; stigmas often bifid at apex. Ovules pendulous from the inner side of the top 

 of the cell of the ovary, commonly twice as numerous as the styles or as the lobes of the 

 style, anatropal, oblong or ovoid ; raphe decurrent on the outer side to an inferior chalaza. 

 Fruit coriaceous or fleshy, tomentose pubescent glandular glabrate or glabrous, globular 

 ovoid oblong or conical (depressed in Diospyros apeibacarpos, compressed in D. dodecandra, 

 obconical in D. stricta), varying from | 3 in. in diameter, usually small in the genus 

 Euclea, of moderate size in Royena and Maba and rather large in Diospyros and Tetraclis; 

 in several species edible ; indehiscent or in a few species splitting in a valvate manner 

 from the apex ; with several or by abortion with few cells ; pericarp coriaceous or in the 

 edible species thin and membranoOs. 



Seeds 1 10, pendulous, usually solitary in the cells of the fruit, usually oblong and 

 laterally compressed or when sole globose, marked externally with 2 or 3 depressed longi- 

 tudinal lines ; hile small ; testa smooth, thin or coriaceous ; albumen cartilaginous, abund- 

 ant, white, uniform or in some species ruminated by intrusion of the coriaceous testa or 

 obscurely striate in radiating lines in a' few species ; embryo axile or slightly oblique, 

 straight or somewhat curved especially in globular seeds, whitish, ^ f ths of the length of 

 the seed; cotyledons 2, equal, foliaceous, with or without veins, contiguous, ovate or lan- 

 ceolate ; radicle superior, cylindrical, not thick, \ f rds of the length of the embryo. 



