SAPOTACE^E 197 



SAPOTACE.E. 



Benth. et Hook. Gen. PI. ii. 650. 



Fruit and Seed. The ovary is superior, and consists of two 

 to five, rarely many, carpels cohering to form as many cells. 

 The ovules are solitary in each cell, attached near the apex or 

 at least some distance above the base of the axile placentas, and 

 amphitropous. The hilum is ventral and usually very large. 

 The fruit is baccate, pulpy, fleshy, more rarely thickened and 

 dry or rarely thin, but always indehiscent. It contains as 

 many cells as there are carpels, or by abortion it may be one- 

 celled and one-seeded, in which case the seed is very large and 

 conforms to the cavity. When the seeds are more numerous 

 they are arranged around the central axis and flattened on 

 their sides by mutual pressure. The hilum is often of great 

 size, linear, oblong, or elliptic and frequently at least equalling 

 the seed in length. Sometimes it is broad and confined to an 

 area near the base of the seed. The testa is crustaceous or 

 lignified, smooth and shining as in Lucuma. The embryo is 

 straight with large cotyledons, and when endosperm is present 

 they are flat and at right angles or parallel to the axis. When 

 endosperm is wanting as in Lucuma the cotyledons are of 

 great size and convexo-concave or variously squeezed into or 

 overlapping one another at the edges. The radicle is always 

 inferior and as a rule very minute compared with the cotyle- 

 dons. The latter may be described as conferruminate in 

 cases where endosperm is wanting and they attain a large 

 size, as in a few species of Lucuma, but more decidedly in the 

 genus Sarcosperma where the embryo is homogeneous and 

 inseparable into its component parts. Other exceptions occur 

 in Argania, in which the septa and axile placentas disappear 

 during growth, and the whole of the seeds become agglomerated 

 into a central mass. The testa of the seeds in Labatia and 

 Argania is very thick and lignified, as is the case also in 

 Lucuma mammosa. Endosperm is wanting in the latter and 

 the large embryo conforms to the interior of the seed. The 

 cotyledons are very fleshy and closely applied to one another, 



