316 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



springing from the filament at a variable height. The gjna?ceum 

 consists of two, or more rarely of three carpels, whose ovarian por- 

 tions are buried in the concavity of the receptacle, almost entirely 

 united to the thick walls of this sac. The edges of the latter are 

 also very thick, and covered with hairs ; they form a projecting 

 rim around the contracted orifice that gives passage to the two or 

 three styles, closely in contact with each other, and each tapering at 

 the apex to a stigraatiferous point. In the internal angle of each 

 ovary may be seen a placenta, bearing towards its upper part a 

 single descending anatropous ovule, whose micropyle looks upwards 

 and inwards. The fruit (fig. 372) is a drupe, surmounted by a 

 cicatrix ; its fleshy mesocarp is not very thick ; while the stone, 

 made up of the cells of the gyna?ceum as well as of the deep layers of 

 the receptacle, is alike very thick and very hard. In each of the 

 two or three cells of this stone is a suspended seed, often sterile ; 

 but which when fertile is formed as in Tamhourism of thin coats, 

 inclosing a copious, oily, fleshy albumen, with a little embryo 

 towards the apex whose radicle projects through a circular opening 

 in the albumen.' 



As yet only one species of this genus is known, G. Kcaler This 

 is a large tree from Chili ; all its parts are very aromatic. It has 

 opposite exstipulate leaves, and shortly pedicellate opposite flowers, 

 collected at the ends of the branches or in the axils of the upper 

 leaves into simple or, more rarely, ramified racemes.' The genus 

 Gomortega, hitherto referred to Lauracces, may be defined as Moni- 

 hiiacea, in which the ovaries adhere to the receptacular sac to form 

 a drupe whose sarcocarp belongs wholly to the receptacle. These 

 plants, then, stand to the other members of the order in the same 



• We have incontestibly established the fact Ciyptocatya, whoso fruit is normally one-collcd 



of the j)resence of a very copious albumen in this unci one-seetleil. 



jicnus {Adans'jnia, ix. 12fi). It appears from * H. Hn., Adansonla, ix. 118.— (7. nitida U. 



MeIH!<NKH'« account (I'ludr., lot: cil., 507) that & PaV,, he. oil. — Lui-vma A'eale Moi... /<»<•. cU. — 



I'llli.ii'i'l hod suhpecti-d its existence in the seeds Adenoslemon uilidum I'khs., loc. cil. (ncc 1U:k- 



of (iomorffi/fi, but tlic author of the Prodromus Tkk.). It is the Keule, Qutule, or Jluulhual of 



rejected the fact. " Sic dictum nlhumen procul the Chilians. 



duJiio e cotrilfduniluM 2 arcle sihi inricem ad- ' The pedicel, which is axillary to a caducous 



plicaliji cotmtal." The /Vo(/»omM» is also wrong bract, usually becomes retlexed before the ex- 



in considering' 1'kusoon inexact in describinp the pansion of the flower. Later it is much thickened, 



fruit as provide<l with a stone with two or three and beconies erect and rigid. All its jiarts are 



cells. There are always one or two ab<jrtive sterile covered with brownish down. The Iwives and 



cells, though it may not bo always easy to sim; bracts arc sprinkknl with numerous glandular 



tliem. Hence the genus h;is no relation with dots. 



