BILLENIAGEJE. 103 



bouring regions of tropical America.' The flowers are grouped in 

 short many-flowered clusters of cymes, arising either from young 

 shoots or from the wood of the old branches. 



As for the leaves, they are the same in all the genera we have just 

 studied, presenting the same appearance in Tetracera, Davilla, and 

 Ciiratella. They are simple and alternate ; the petiole is sometimes 

 dilated, and channelled, or with a double stipuliform marginal wing ; 

 the blade is simple, entire or slightly crenate or dentate, with numerous 

 parallel secondary ribs at short distances from one another, extending 

 obliquely or nearly transversely from the midrib to the margin of 

 the leaf (fig. 142). These leaves are often scabrous or rugose, 

 especially on the under surface. The arrangement of the flowers 

 too is the same in all these genera ; the inflorescence is rarely reduced 

 to a single flower ; more usually they consist of simple or ramified 

 panicles of cymes springing from, the old wood, the axils of the 

 leaves, or even the axils of slightly developed bracts at the summit 

 of the branches, so that the approximation of several partial inflo- 

 rescences constitutes what is termed a terminal panicle." 



With the same habit and foliage, Empcdoclea^ has a single carpel 

 like Belima and BoUocarjJus, containing a placenta on which are 

 six ascending ovules in two vertical rows, and an elongated style 

 stigmatiferous at the tip ; indefinite unequal free stamens, of which 

 the dilated connective supports an extrorse anther of two oblique 

 cells, diverging below and dehiscing by longitudinal clefts, and a 

 corolla of three or four petals. But the calyx consists not of five, 

 but of from ten to fifteen sepals, smaller as they are lower down 

 on the elongated cylindrical receptacle on which they are regularly 

 imbricated. Only one species'" is known, which comes from the 

 south of Brazil. 



While in all the species we have just been studying, the (often 

 climbing) stems are woody, and sometimes very much developed, 

 the genus Acrotrema,^ from tropical Asia,^ consists of small herbs 



* DC, Prodr., i. 70. — Pl. & Teiana, in Ann. Eicitl., op. ciL, 82, t. 20. — Endl., Gen., u. 



Sc. Nat., ser. 4, xvii. 15, 23.— Seem., J3ot. 1762.— B. H., Gen., 11, n, 1 (iiec Uafin.). 



Merald, 75, 268.— Waep., Rep., i. 65. * i-- ahiifolia A. S. II., loc. cit. 



2 In this case they are ivally racemes whose ^ .Jack, Mai. MiscelL, ex IlooK., Bot. Mijic, 



branches arc cymes, usually biparous; but the ii. 81. — WiGUT & Akx., Prodr., i. 6. — Enkl., 



exhaustion of the vegetation makes them often Gen., u. 4758. — B. H., Gen., 13, u. 7.— H. Bn., 



become uniparous towards the end of the last Adansoiihi, vi. 277, 280. 



divisions of the general inllorescence. " W\o iiT, lllustr., t. 3.— IIooK., Icon., 1. 157 ; 



^ A. S. \i., Flor. Brasil. Merid.,\. '10, i.n\. — Kew Joiirn., viii. t. 4; Bu(. Majj., t. 5373. — 



