542 



CHRYSOBALANACE.E. 



[Perigynous Exogens. 



Order CCVIII. CHRYSOBALANACEiE.— Chrysobalans. 



Chrysobalanese, R. Brown, in Tuckey'* Voyage to the Congo, App. (1818); DC. Prodr. 2.525. a § of 

 Rosacea ; Bartl. Ord. Nat. p. 405; Endl. Gen. cclxxiv.; Meisner Gen. p. 101. 



Diagnosis. — Rosal Exogens, with polypetalous or apetalous flowers, which are nearly or 

 quite regular, a solitary carpel, and a style proceeding from its base. 



Trees or shrubs. Leaves simple, alternate, stipulate, with no slands, and veins that 

 run parallel with each other from the midrib to the margin. Flowers in racemes, or 



panicles, or corymbs. Calyx 5-lobed, 

 sometimes unequal at the base, with 

 an imbricated aestivation. Petals 

 with short stalks, more or less irre- 

 gular, either 5 or none. Stamens 

 either definite or 00, usually irregu- 

 lar either in size or position. Ovary 

 superior, consisting of a single carpel, 

 1- or 2-celled, cohering more or less 

 on one side with the calyx ; ovules 

 twin, erect, anatropal ; style single, 

 arising from the base ; stigma simple. 

 Fruit a drupe of 1 or 2 cells. Seed 

 erect. Embryo with fleshy cotyle- 

 dons, and no albumen. 



The obvious affinity of this Order 

 is with Almondworts, from which it 

 differs in having irregular stamens 

 and petals, and a style proceeding 

 from the base of the ovary. With 

 Roseworts, to which Chrysobalans 

 have a strict relation, they agree in 

 the same manner as Almondworts, 

 excepting the characters just pointed 

 out. To leguminous plants, with 

 drupaceous fruit, they approach 

 closely in the irregularity of their 

 stamens and corolla, and especially 



v -i_^"" 



Fig. CCCLXIX 



in the cohesion which takes place between the stalk of the ovary and the sides of the 

 calvx • a character found, as De Candolle well remarks, in Jonesia and Baulnma, 

 undoubted leguminous plants : Chrysobalans are distinguished from this latter Order 

 bv the position of their stvle and ovules, and by the relation which is borne to the axis 

 of inflorescence by the odd lobe of the calyx being the same as occurs in Roseworts. 

 Brown remarks that the greater part of the Order has the flowers more or less irregu- 

 lar and that the simple ovary of Parinarium has a dissepiment in some degree analo- 

 • ■ ■■ — - -* -d— '-:- an d Drvandra ; but we now know, from 



gous to the moveable dissepiment of Banksia 

 tV.P mnw recent observations of this learned 



lore recent observations of tins learned Botanist upon the ovule, that the dissepi- 

 ment of Proteads arises differently. The analogy of structure, as to the dissepiment of 

 Parinarium, is to be sought in Amelanchier. 



Chrysobalans are principally found in the tropical regions of Africa and America, 

 none are recorded as natives of Asia ; but there is reason to believe, from specimens of 

 lar^e trees seen in the forests of India, without flowers or fruit, by Walhch, that one or 

 two species of Parinarium are indigenous in equinoctial Asia ; and Royle's genus 1 i-in- 

 sepia, founded upon a spiny plant from Nipal is apparently referable to this Order. 

 One species of Chrvsobalanus is found as far to the north as the pme-barrens of Geo igu 

 in North America; a climate, however, as in all the regions bounding the Gulf ot 

 Mexico on the north, much more heated than that of most other countries in the same 



Pa Sy°of 1 aeS e are what in Europe are called Stone-fruits. MoquUea grandiflorj 



yields eatable drupes in Brazil. The fruit of Chrysobalanus Icaco is eaten m the We* 



Fig. CCCLXIX.-Moquilea canomenris.-r Martiut. 1. a flower; 2. an ovary; 3. a perpendicular 

 section of the last ; 4. a fruit ; 5. a kernel. 



