BIXACE^l. 277 



which there is generally no trace in the male flowers, is composed 

 of a free ovary, surmounted by a variable number (two to ten or 

 twelve) of stylary branches, the summits stigmatiferous dilated, 

 often bilobed, * reflexed or revolute. In the interior of the ovary 

 may be observed an equal number of parietal placentas advancing 

 sometimes even to the axis of the cell, where they come in contact, 

 each supporting two or a larger number 1 of descendent anatropous 

 ovules, with micropyle looking upwards and outwards. The fruit 

 is a drupe, the pericarp finally containing as many nuts as there had 

 been incomplete cells. In each one or more seeds are found, the 

 coats covering a fleshy albumen, and an axile embryo with coty- 

 ledons often orbicular. 



Flacourtia consists of trees or shrubs, frequently thorny, inha- 

 biting all the warm regions of the Old World. The leaves are alter- 

 nate, petiolate, articulate, accompanied by stipules, generally very 

 small, with small flowers disposed in axillary cymes, or grouped upon 

 simple or ramified axes, analogous to spikes, racemes or umbels. A 

 great number of species have been described, 2 now reduced to a 

 dozen, comprising Bennettia Horsfieldii? a Javanese species, with 

 small female flowers, often trimerous. 



Beside Flacourtia are ranged: Xylosma (figs. 301, 302), scarcely 

 differing from it by its flowers in four, five, or six parts, its pla- 

 centas from two to six in number, its style entire or almost wanting, 

 or divided above into lobes corresponding in number with the pla- 

 centas ; Dovyalis, the sepals of which are scarcely imbricated, and the 

 placentas supporting a much smaller number of ovules ; Trimeria, 

 which has as many petals as sepals — viz., from three to five, and the 

 flowers of Dovyalis, with a fruit which opens at the apex ; Peridiscus, 

 the ovary of which, surmounted by a tolerably large number of 

 radiating styles, is thickened into a disk as far as the middle of its 

 height, and is surrounded by from four to five almost valvate sepals, 

 and by a verticil of tolerably numerous stamens, the filaments being 



1 There are often two, superposed one to the Fl. Ind.-Bat., i. p. ii. 102 ; Fl. Sum., 158. — 

 other, or nearly so, the upper being early less Tukcz., in Bull. Mosc. (1863), i. 553. — H. Bn., 

 developed than the lower. They have two in Adansonia, x. 250. — Tul., in Ann. Sc. Nat., 

 envelopes. ser. 5, ix. 340. — Oliv., Fl. Prop. Afr., i. 120. — 



2 H. B. E., Nov. Gen. et Spec, vii. 238.— Walp., Ann., vii. 228. 



Roxb., PI. Corom., t. 68, 69, 222.— Wight & 3 Miq., Fl. Ind.-Bat., i. p. ii. 105.— 



Arn., Prodr., i. 29. — Reichb., Consp., 188 Benth., in Journ. Linn. Soc, v. Suppl., 87. — 



(Rhamnopsu). — Wigut, Icon., t. 85. — A. B. H., Gen., 128, n. 18.— H. Bn., in Adan- 



Gbay, Amer. Explor. Exp., Bot., 75. — Miq., sonia, x. 251.— Walp., Ann., vii. 228. 



