316 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



spriiiijing Irom the lilamcnt at a variable lieiglit. The gyna?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 tliick, and covered with hairs ; they form a projecting 

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

 three st^des, 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 b}^ 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 Tamhourissa 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. Kealer 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 

 Gomorteya, hitherto referred to Lauracece, may be defined as Moni- 

 miacccB, 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 Cryptocarya, whose fruit is normally one-celled 



of the presence of a very copious albumen in this and one-seeded. 



genus {Adamonia, ix. 126). It appears from ^ y[. Bn., Adansonia, ix. 118.— G. nitida R. 



Meishneh's account {Prodr., loc. cU., 507) that & Pat., Ioc. cit.—Ltu-uma Keale MoL., loc. cit.— 



ruiMi'iM had suspected its existence in tlie seeds Adenostemon nUidinn Pees., he. cit. (nee Bee- 



of (iumoi-tuja, but the author of the Prodromv.s Tek.). It is the Keale, Qtteule, or Huallmal of 



rejected tlie fact. " <Sto du-tum albumen procul the Chilians. 



dithio e cotyledonihus 2 arcle sili invicem ad- ^ The pedicel, which is axillary to a caducous 



pllcalh constat." The Prof/>-onn/s is also wrong bract, usually becomes reflexed before the ex- 



in consideriu',' Pehsoon inexact in describing the pansion of the flower. Later it is much thickened, 



fruit as provided with a stone with two or three and becomes erect and rigid. All its parts are 



cells. There are always one or two abortive sterile covered with brownish down. The leaves and 



cells, though it may not be always easy to see bracts are sprinkled with numerous glandular 



them. Hence the genus has no relation with dots. 



