ANON ACE JE. 



211 



numerous, in two vertical rows ; and the receptacle wliicli it termi- 

 nates gives insertion below to a large number of stamens, which are 

 shorter as they are more external, and to two thick valvate corollas, 

 forming in the bud the sort of three- sided pyramid of certain species 

 of Mchdorinu and Kenila. 



Thus constituted,' the genus Bocagea includes half a score species 

 from the tropical regions of both hemispheres. We already know 



Bocofiea {EremodelpJiis) Gaudichaudiana. 



y^ 



Fig. 2i9. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



five species from Brazil' and one from Ambongo.' The others are 

 Indian plants, hitherto described under the name of Alphonsea.* 

 They are trees or shrubs, with alternate, often glabrous, leaves. The 

 flowers are either solitary or grouped into few-flowered cymes, often 

 supported on slender peduncles ; sometimes axillary, sometimes ter- 

 minal, but more often leaf-opposed or extra- axillary, springing from 

 tlie branches at very variable heights on the internodes; and this 

 variation may occur in one and the same species. 



at the same time pluri- and uni-carpellary plants. 

 Here the gynseceum i.s inserted near the summit 

 of a rather elongated floral receptacle. The ovules 

 are numerous, arranged in two vertical rows; 

 and the style is somewhat swollen at its apex 

 into a depressed stigmatiferous head. The struc- 

 ture of the very numerous stamens, which are 

 shorter as they are more external, is the same 

 as in B. verrucosa. 



' Namely, first of the Indian Alphonseas, 

 which might become a section if we only re- 

 tained the species that are pluri-carpellary, and 

 have many stamens. A second section might be 

 formed for the Old World species with only a 

 limited number of stamens, especially B. heler- 

 nniha, which has but three or six. In a third 

 section, which would bear the same relation to 



the rest of the genus as Monocarjna bears to 

 Unona proper, the gyniEceum would be reduced 

 to a single carpel {Eremodelphis). Finally the 

 true Bocageas, all American, would have the 

 stamens and carpels definite or nearly so ; but 

 the latter would be multiovulate as in the 

 species for which A. de Saixt-Hilaiee esta- 

 blished the genus; or else, as in B. canesceiis, 

 a single excentric carpel with a bio\-ulate ovary 

 would exist in the centre of the flower. 



- A. S. H., loc. cit. (see p. 210. notes I, 2).— 

 Mart., Fl. Bras., 11, t. 11.— H. By., Adan- 

 sonia, viii. 164, 169, 170. 



^ H. Bn., Adansonia, viii. 173. 



* Hook. & Thoms., Fl. Ind., i. 152.— Thw., 

 Fnum. PI. Zeyl., 11. 



