130 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



pit on the opposite side. It is between this pit and the two posterior 

 sepals that we find a little tongue-shaped petal in Codarium, which 

 was formerly considered a distinct genus. 1 The gynaeceum in this 

 section is very excentric, shortly stipitate, and consists, as in 

 Dialium generally, of an ovary surmounted by a subulate style, which 

 is inflexed in the bud so that its scarcely dilated stigmatiferous apex 

 is bent backwards and downwards towards the placenta. This bears 

 two more or less oblique descending anatropous ovules with their 

 micropyles superior and exterior. The fruit is a nearly globular 

 berry, with a glabrous or velvety exocarp of variable thickness, and an 

 endocarp forming a sort of pulp surrounding one or two seeds. \\ ithin 

 the seed-coats is a copious horny albumen surrounding a green 

 embryo with flattened cotyledons, which are more or less unsym- 

 metrical at the base and sometimes a little folded, and a short obtuse 

 swollen superior radicle. 



Dialium (Around) guiaiien.se. 



Fig. 118. 

 Flower (f) 



Fig. 119. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



Arounrr (figs. 118, 119) consists of American species of Dialium in 

 which the floral receptacle is a little more flattened, and lined by a 

 thicker, less concave disk.' 1 There is no corolla, and the flowers are 

 very small. 



Dialium* consists of some seven or eight species of trees from the 

 tropics in Africa, 5 Asia, 6 and America. Their unarmed branches 

 bear alternate imparipinnate leaves with few leaflets. The stipules 



1 We are told that it may sometimes have two. 



2 Attbl., Gfuian., i. 16, t. 5. — Cleyeria Neck., 

 Elem., n. 897. 



3 Which brings it, as we shall see, nearer to 

 Ceratonia. 



* Dialium divaricalum Vahl, Fnum., i. 303. — 

 DC, Prodi:, n. 2. — Arouna guianensis Aubl., 

 loc. cit. — A. divaricata W., Spec, i. 49. 



5 Gni.L. & PEES., Fl. Seneg. Tent., i. 2G7.— 

 Hook., Niger, 329. — Webb, in Hook. Jottrn., ii. 

 3 17.— Walt, Rep., i. 834; Ann., ii. 449.— Our., 

 Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 282. 



6 BritM., Fl. Ind., 12. — Sir., in Bees Cyclop., 

 v. and xi. n. 1. — Hfxn*., PI. Jav. Ear., t. 30. — 

 Thw., Enum. PI. Zeyl., 97. 



