ANONAGE^. 191 



Anonad, witli exactly the flowers and fruit of A. iriloha, except that 

 its petals present a slight difference, the inner ones alone heing 

 imbricate, while the outer ones are but very slightly so, finally 

 becoming valvate. Its vegetative organs are the same, and the 

 flowers are also solitary axillar}^ There was not tlic least ground 

 for distinguishing this genus from Asimma; it has not been 

 retained. It has been included in the great Linna?an genus 

 TJvaria^ to which it is hence impossible to refuse to admit Asimina. 

 This admission has been a matter of history for the last thirty 

 years. ^ 



Before this time the genus Uvaria^ was only allowed to contain 

 plants from tropical Asia and Africa.^ If we inquire what characters 

 are common to these Uvarias properly so called, we find that their 

 flowers present a triple perianth and an indefinite number of carpels 

 and stamens on a convex receptacle. The calyx is composed of three 

 sepals, nearly free, or more commonly united for a very variable 

 extent, sometimes even joined into an entire, or scarcely dentate sac, 

 valvate or more or less imbricate when young. The petals, rounded, 

 oval or oblong, often all equal or nearly so, are imbricated in the 

 bud. The stamens consist of a narrow elongated obpyramidal con- 

 nective, with two linear adnate extrorse anther cells, dehiscing 

 longitudinally. Above these the connective is prolonged into either a 

 swollen truncated head, or a blade of variable size and form, sometimes 

 leafy and oblong or lanceolate. The carpels, inserted near the 

 rounded or flattened apex of the receptacle, are formed of an ovary 

 with indefinite anatropous ovules inserted in two vertical rows, back to 

 back, along the inner angle. The usually short style, dilated into 

 a stigmatiferous head at its apex, surmounts the inner angle of the 

 ovary, the whole length of which is traversed by a longitudinal 

 groove. The fruit is multiple, composed of a variable number of 

 many- or one-seeded berries, with a somewhat contracted base, almost 



1 F. Mtiell., 0]}. cit., iii. 1.— Benth., Fl. * Bltjme was the first to reduce to the Old 

 Austr., i. 51.— B. H., Gen., 955.— H. Bn., in World a species of this gcims, which, according 

 Adansonia, viii. 303. to his jjrcdccessors, included a large number of 



2 TORE.& A. Gray, op. cit. (See p. 187, note 2.) Anonads from all countries, that are now referred 

 ^ L., Gen., n. 692.— Juss., Gen., 28 J.— DC, to seven or eight diil'erent genera. But he had 



Syst. Veg., i. 481 ; Prodr., i. 88. — Spach, Suit. at first united in this one genus both Uoaria and 



a Biiffbn, vii. 519.— Endl., Gen., n. 4717.— Z-tioiia, which he only distinguished from one 



15. H., Gen., 23, 955, n. 3.— H. Bn., Jdan- another by the form of the I'ruit {Fl. Jai\ 



aoBta, viii. 335. — iVoieria Neck., £iew,,n. 1097. Anonac, 11, 51). 



