88 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



all along dilated into a very narrow membranous wing. The genus 

 consists of unarmed trees from tropical Africa. 1 



Batesia, 2 too, has nearly the flowers of a Sclerohbium : five free im- 

 bricate sepals, as many subequal imbricate petals, and ten stamens 

 inflexed in the bud, so that their anthers are then lodged in the 

 cavity of the receptacle between the disk lining its wall and the foot 

 of the ovaiy. The linear anther-cells are applied to a thick con- 

 nective, and the form of the gynaeceum is altogether peculiar. Its 

 foot, which is central, is obliquely dilated above into an elliptical 

 inclined plane edged with down ; this bears a pauciovulate ovary, 

 scarcely tapering at the apex into a style which is at once truncated, 

 and stigmatiferous and ciliate at the end. The pod is bowed coriaceous 

 and turgid, dehiscent by a single cleft, and contains two or three 

 compressed seeds whose embryo is surrounded by albumen. The 

 only known JBatesia 3 is a tree from North Brazil with imparipinnate 

 leaves and ramified terminal racemes. 



Next to Batesia we have placed a reduced type which Aublet 

 named Vouacapovct (figs. 60-02), and which is to Sclerolobium and 

 Batesia exactly what Zuccagnia is to Casalpinia. 6 The receptacle, 

 the pentamerous imbricate calyx and corolla, are those of the two 

 former genera. The androceum, too, consists of ten stamens, of 

 which the five oppositipetalous are the shorter ; but their filaments 

 are erect and the cells of their sagittate anthers diverse below. 

 The gynaeceum has lost the obliquely dilated foot of Batesia, and is 

 directly inserted into the bottom of the receptacle ; its ovary contains 

 only a single descending anatropous ovule, whose micropyle is up- 

 wards and outwards. The ovary tapers above into a style, leaning 

 slightly towards the placenta, and possessing at its apex a little cavity 

 with a ciliate circular rim (fig. 62). V. americana, the only known 

 species of this genus, has not only the panicled inflorescence and 

 the flowers themselves like those of most ConnaracecB, but also their 



1 Tul., in Arch. Mus., iv. 120.— Walp., Rep., 

 v. 552. The three described species of this 

 genus Bentham would rather make mere 

 varieties of the single species R. procera Peesl. 

 (Ramirezia eubensis A. Rich.). 



- Spruce, ex B. H., Gen., 563, n. 300. 



3 B. erythrosperma Benth., in Trans. Linn. 

 Soc, xxv. 302, t. 37. — Tachigalia erythrosperma 

 Spruce, exs., n. 2780. 



4 Aubl., Guian., Suppl., 9, t. 373. — H. Bx., 

 in Adansonia, ix. 206, t. iv. 



5 This character, strictly applied, might have 

 placed them in Copaiferece, as has been done to 

 Zuccagnia, but its affinities with Batesia seem 

 to us far closer. Bate,sia is perhaps really only 

 a speeiesof Vouacapoua with a phiriovulate ovary, 

 so that it should form a simple section of the 

 genus characterized by this feature, and also by 

 the oblique dilatation at the base of the foot of 

 the ovary. 



