378 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



free superior gynaeceum consists of an ovary, with two incomplete 

 multiovulate cells, surmounted by two long diverging persistent 

 styles. The fruit is a septicidal capsule, bearing on the edges of its 

 two valves the numerous seeds. Thus this genus shows a close 

 analogy in its flowers to Geissois and Spirts ant hemum. The flowers 

 are crowded in the axils of the leaves, or the bracts replacing them, 

 into globular cymes, forming axillary false verticils. 



Ackama* approaches both the preceding genera and Weinmannia. 

 Its floral receptacle is subconcave ; inside the valvate calyx are five 

 bilobate alternipetalous glands. Outside the disk are five caducous 

 narrow spathulate petals, and ten stamens, half superposed to these 

 and half to the sepals. The filaments are free and subulate, incurved 

 at the apex in the bud ; the anthers are introrse two-celled, of longi- 

 tudinal dehiscence, often tipped by a prolongation of the connective. 

 The ovary is two- or three-celled, multiovulate ; and the fruit is a 

 septicidal capsule, with hairy seeds. Ackama includes two species, 2 

 trees from Australia and New Zealand, with opposite imparipinnate 

 leaves and caducous stipules. The flowers are small in much branch- 

 ing, compound, axillary, or terminal racemes. 3 



Bavidsonia pruriens* is a tree from North-east Australia, which 

 owes its name to the irritating hairs with which it is covered. Its 

 alternate imparipinnate leaves with two large stipules, are those of 

 certain Mcliacece, Sapindacea, or Rosacea, and its flowers are grouped 

 in long ramified racemes of spikes ; on the nearly flat receptacle are 

 inserted four or five thick valvate sepals, and twice as many stamens ; 

 the short filament is inserted below a little hypogynous disk, and 

 the anther is introrse two-celled, of longitudinal dehiscence. The 

 gynseceum consists of a two-celled ovary surmounted by two slender 

 styles, stigmatiferous at the apex. In either cell is a septal placenta 

 bearing a variable number of ovules (usually six or eight) inserted in 

 a circle around its edge, and more or less descending when adult. 



1 A. Cttkn., in Ann. Nat. Hist., ii. 358.— 719 ;— Walp., Ann., vii. 910), the Dirhynchosia 

 Endl., Gen., n. 4657.— B. H., Gen., 653, n. 67. of Blume {Mel. JBot., 1855, n. 1, ex Walp., 



2 Hook, p., Fl. N.-Zel., i. 79.— Benth., Fl. Ann., v. 31), a tree from Celebes, covered with 

 Austral, ii. 444.— A. Gray, in Unit. States stellate hairs and glandular dots, with opposite 

 Fxpl. Fxp., Bot., 671, t. 84 (Weinmannia). imparipinnate leaves like those of Weinmannia, 



3 Bentham & Hooker {Gen., 653, d. 68) dioecious 5-6-merous flowers, and a birostrate 

 place here a genus that is quite unknown to us, two-celled capsule. 



Spiratopsis celebica (Miq., Fl. Ind.-Bat., i. p. i. * F. Mtjell., Fragm., vi. 4, 249, t. 46. 





