SAPOTACE^E 345 



Perhaps the most interesting plant of the family is 

 jEGlCERAS MAJUS, G. which grows in the low mud 

 flats of the sea-coast, and is distinguished by having 

 stretching out from the soil all round it, upright 

 roots of a spongy texture, which appear (like the 

 spongy petioles of NYMPH^EACE^), to provide for the 

 under-ground roots that change of air which the water 

 logged state of the soil renders difficult (p. 104). 



SAPOTACE^E 



Examples : 



MIMUSOPS ELENGI, L. a tree often grown in Indian 

 gardens for its sweet-scented white flowers. The bark 

 is rough, the small branches very numerous and covered 

 at the ends with rust-coloured tomentum. All parts 

 abounding in latex. Leaves alternate, shortly petioled, 

 simple, elliptic acuminate, entire, coriaceous, glabrous 

 and shining. Venation pinnate, the secondary veins 

 very slender and nearly at right angles to the midrib. 



Flowers on axillary pedicels, fascicled. Sepals in 

 two whorls, the outer valvate, the inner imbricate. 

 Corolla monopetalous, rotate, with very short tube 

 .and lobes in three whorls of eight each, the inner 

 whorl forming a cone over the stamens. These are 

 the corolla-lobes proper, the two outer whorls being 

 in reality scales developed on their backs. Stamens 

 eight, interspersed with a whorl of fringed and hairy 

 staminodes, anthers linear, connectives produced beyond 

 them. Ovary in the centre tomentose, eight-celled, 

 with a single stout style centrally placed. Fruit a 

 berry, one-celled, with one seed. 



