106 



NATURAL mSTORY OF PLANTS. 



lia bracteata. 



and shrubs ; there are six species, 1 all from tropical America and 

 especially Guiana. The alternate pari- or imparipinnate leaves 

 possess tew coriaceous leaflets, and either short and narrow or large 

 leafy caducous stipules. The flowers form short racemes, often grouped 

 on a common terminal axis ; this may be short and erect, or slender 

 elongated and pendulous. Each rioter is axillary to a bract and is 

 accompanied by two caducous lateral bractlets. 



The flowers o\' Afzdit? resemble those of Berlin) 'a, but their lateral 

 bractlets. ill-developed as in Danielia, do not cover them completely 

 in the bud. -/. bracteata, for instance, has a tubular receptacle bearing 

 on its edges a calyx of four sepals, two lateral and two respectively 

 anterior and posterior, by which the former are overlapped. The 

 corolla is only represented by the large posterior petal, and the an- 



droceum consists o( nine stamens. Oi' 

 these rive are superposed to the sepals 

 and four alternate with them ; it is the 

 one which should be superposed to the 

 large single petal which is absent, while 

 the stamen on either side o[' this is re- 

 duced to a sterile tongue. Hence we 

 find (fig. 83), u<'inu- from before backwards, 

 mie large stamen, two smaller, two large 

 ones, two small again, and finally two 

 staminodes ; next to those is inserted the 

 gynaeceum, towards the posterior edge of 

 the receptacular cavity (B It consists 

 of a multiovulate ovary, surmounted by 

 a style which is rolled up in the bud 

 and ends in a little stigmatiferous head. The fruit is a thick flattened 

 elongated pod. divided by transverse false dissepiments into as many 

 chambers as there are seeds. Each of these last has a coloured aril 

 forming a deep cupule at its base. A. bracteata is a tree from the 

 w est of tropical Africa. The flowers of A. q/ricana, which comes from 

 the same parts, lack the posterior staminodes. In A. madaya&cariensis, 



Fig. - 

 Diagram. 



1 K., Zirei Abhandl., 15, t. 3. ri^. 1. — Walp., 

 Ann., ii. 147. 



-' Sv.. in Trans. Lkm. S .. iv. 221. — IV.. 

 Prodi:, ii. 507. — Emtl.. (r«.. n. Ci7i>6.— Hook. 

 F, -V/./c -. 325, ;. 31, 35. — II. By., in Adam- 



. \i. is:^._n. H.. >. 580, " inee 



i., nee Gmxl.). — P? Pameotna \\ - 

 •' ex Sic, in Bees i r. 26). — J 



coma really belongs to Sapiadacea (II. 1 -:>'.. 



Adaasomia, is. 22'J). 



