LEG UMIN0S2E- C2ESALPINIE2E. 



103 



contain a variable amount of pollen." V. crassifolia} affords a transitu m 

 between this and the American spscies in its androceum, possessing 

 three large stamens with fertile anthers, and four little ones of 

 which the two lateral have a small anther, and the two others have 

 only a little glandular swelling at the tip. We have further examined 

 two African species which constitute the types of the sections Tripli- 

 someris and Pentisomeris of Vouapa, which complete our knowledge of 

 the floral symmetry of this group; for the former has only two 

 small petals, the three posterior being of nearly equal size ; and the 

 latter* has the two posterior sepals quite free instead of being united 

 for some distance, so that the quinary type of the calyx is completely 



Vouapa (Anlhonota) macrophylla. 



Fig. 79. 

 Flower (-*-). 



Fig. 80. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



restored. The ovary, inserted at a variable distance from the bottom 

 of the receptacle (figs. 78, SO), contains from two or three to an in- 

 definite number of descending ovules, and ends in a style somewhat 

 dilated at its stigmatiferous apex. The fruit is a few-seeded bivalve 

 pod of very variable form, 4 containing flattened exalbuminous seeds. 

 The genus Vouapa consists of unarmed trees from tropical Africa and 

 America ; some twenty species, as mentioned above, are known/ 



1 H.Bx., in Adansonia, vi. 179, note 1 ["pro- 

 bably not distinct," from V. macrophylla (Uliv.. 

 op. cit., ii. 298).] 



2 V. explicans H. Bn., loc. cit., 181, note 1. 



3 V. demons trans H. Bn., loc. cit., 180, 

 note 1, t. iii. tigs. 1-5. We must note that in 

 most of these species the vexillary petal being 

 so very large, envelopes all the other elements of 

 the corolla in the bud, and often too even part 

 of the calyx, namely, the three anterior sepals. 

 Thus the ordinary prsefloration of the < 'cesalpinieai 

 may disappear in this genus, and be replaced 

 by a irue vexillary aestivation, as occurs, 



though much more rarely, in the Tamarind I p. W. 

 not e 5). 



4 In V. acacimfolia (Macrolobiv/m acaciat- 

 folium Benth.), the fruit is thus described 1\ 



Bentham: " legumen laoe, suturis n 

 sails 1 1 s( minis cotyl ■ 'on s insigniter cor 

 sedflores < / injlori ■<■ \ i i 'ens 



spt debus dislincfuitntur" 



5 W., Spec, i. L86. K., 2koei '. 



13, t, 2. Benth., in Hook. Joum., ii. 239 ; in 

 Trans. Linn. Soc, xxv. 307. -Kaust., 11. 

 Cohvmb., t. 75.— Walp., Rep., i. 815; v. 

 . 1,1, i., ii. 4.48. 



