STERCULIACE^E 271 



to mutual pressure, and each is emarginate or auricled at the 

 base with the auricles more or less closely applied to one another 

 while in the seed and hardly separating during germination. 

 Petioles terete, rather slender (compared with the lamina), 12- 

 14 mm. long and attached to the inner face of the laminse about 5- 

 7 mm. above their base, that is at the upper end of the fissure between 

 the auricles. 



Stem erect, stout, woody, more or less scaly, at least in the young 

 state. 



Leaves alternate, stipulate, cauline, penninerved, scaly, petiolate. 



Nos. 1 and 2. Opposite or subopposite, scaly, brown. 



Nos. 3 to 6. Alternate and similar. 



No. 7. Ovate, foliaceous, penninerved. 



Heritiera littoralis, Ait. 



Fruit of one to three, rarely four to five, obovoid, unequal-sided, 

 shortly stipitate, brown, rough, woody, one-seeded carpels, composed 

 of a dense mass of interlacing fibres packed with brown corky loose 

 matter, and ending in a stout curved beak, which is laterally com- 

 pressed, diverging outwards and much more nearly in line with the 

 dorsal than the ventral suture. Hence the ventral side of the fruit 

 appears almost ventricose. 



Seed roughly obovoid and conforming to the interior of the 

 carpel ; testa brown, thick, brittle, resembling bark ; raphe ventral, 

 composed of tough fibres separable from the seed, extending from 

 near the apex to the base of the cavity of the carpel ; micropyle 

 superior ; hilum large, oblong, ventral, below the apex and extend- 

 ing downwards. 



Endosperm absent. 



Embryo straight, when mature very large, fleshy, filling the 

 whole interior of the seed, pale pink or flesh-coloured ; cotyledons 

 very thick, plano-convex, slightly wrinkled or uneven, sometimes 

 furrowed along the back of the midrib, frequently if not always un- 

 equal, oval or oblong-oval in outline, but often assuming various 

 shapes, auricled at the base and embracing the radicle. The largest 

 cotyledon is sometimes placed with its back to the ventral suture, 

 sometimes to the dorsal suture or irregularly. In some instances 

 the cotyledons are of different lengths or variously twisted and 

 deformed or even multiplied, and irregular in size and number. 



The radicle when normal is stout, very short, grasped by the 

 auricles of the cotyledons, beyond which it does not protrude ; it is 

 superior. 



Plumule small, densely covered with short brown hairs. 



