252 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



known. They are trees, sometimes very high, natives of tropical 

 America. The leaves are opposite, compound-digitate, with three 1 

 or five thick folioles, often coriaceous, generally dentate or crenate. 

 The petiole is sometimes furnished at the base with two caducous 

 stipules. The flowers, generally large, purple or greenish, are 

 arranged in terminal racemes. 



Beside Caryocar are placed Jnthodiscus," consisting of trees or 

 shrubs of the same region, which are only distinguished from them 

 by their alternate trifoliate leaves ; by their corollas, which are 

 detached in a single piece at the base, like those of Marcgravia ; by 

 their stamens plainly grouped in five alternipetalous 3 phalanges, 

 by the numerous cells of their ovary/ their almost orthotropal 5 

 ovules, their coriaceous pericarp, and their embryo with rolled or 

 spiral radicle. Three species 6 of Anthodiscus are known. 



The family Ternstrcemiacca was distinguished in 1813 by 

 B. Mirbel. 7 Before him A. L. de Jussieu 8 made the known plants 

 of this group a special section of the Order Citrus (Fr., ] r angers) 

 characterized by its dry polyspermous fruits. It comprised, with 

 Ternstrannia (and Tonabea, wrongly preserved as distinct), Thea 

 and Camellia, of which Mirbel also made a separate family under 

 the name of Theacea* De Candolle adopted this method of 

 arrangement, preserved as distinct the Order of Ternstrcemiacetf™ and 

 that of Theacece, which he named Camelliece? 1 In 1828, Cambessedes, 

 in a special memoir, 12 which was long considered as an authority 



1 Character of the section Saouari, while the 

 species of the section Pekea have five. 



2 C. F. Mey., Prim, Fl. Essequeb., 193.— 

 Lindl., Yeg. Kingd., 398, fig. 280. — Endl., 

 Gen., n. 5643.— B. H., Gen., 181, n. 2.— H. 

 Bn., in Payer Fam. Nat., 268. 



3 They are all united below in a short 

 annular enclosure; then a bundle is detached 

 opposite each of the teeth of the calyx, the 

 middle filaments of which are much longer and 

 inflcxed in the bud ; they then diminish in 

 size until they meet the edges of the neigh- 

 bouring bundles, and they are straight with 

 erect anthers 



4 This is surrounded at the base by a short 

 unequal disc. The cells vary from eight to 

 twenty. 



5 In A. peruanus the micropyle is superior, 



and the hilum is close to the base a little nearer 

 the internal than the external edge. In other 

 terms, the anatropal movement is scarcely in- 

 dicated, and the ovule becomes ascendent. 



t 6 Benth., in Trans. Linn. Soc, xviii. 236, t. 

 20. — H. Bn., in Adansonia, x. 241. 



7 In Bull. Soc. Philom., 381 (Ternstrae- 

 miacece). 



8 Gen. (1789), 262. 



9 Loc. cit., 381. 



10 In Mem. Soc. Gen., i. (1823), 393 ; Prodi:, 

 i. (1824), 523, Ord. 30.— Lindl., Yeg. Kingd., 

 396, Ord. 142.— Endl., Gen., 1017, Ord. 215. 



11 Theor. Flint. (1813); Prodr., i. 529, Ord. 

 31. 



,2 Mem. sur les Fam. des Ternstraemiacees et 

 des Giittifhes (in Mem. Mus., xvi. 370). 



