BIXAGEM. 



•287 



Homalkim (Nisa) involucratum. 



Fig. 324. 

 Bud (f). 



/ 



Fig. 325. 

 Long. sect, of bud. 



ferior ovary is unilocular, with three, four, or a greater number of 

 placentas, each bearing one, 1 two, or a larger number of anatropous 

 and descendent ovules. The free 

 summit of the ovary is surmounted 

 by style branches equal in number 

 to the placentas with which they 

 alternate, and stigmatiferous at their 

 scarcely swollen apex. The fruit 

 is a capsule round which persists 

 the receptacle and the hardened 

 perianth. It opens at the summit 

 into as many valves as there are 

 carpels separating to allow the seeds 

 to escape which have a fleshy albu- 

 men, an axile embryo, with but 

 little developed foliaceous cotyledons, 

 are known, natives of all the warm regions of the world. They are 

 trees or shrubs, with alternate simple petiolate leaves, with or without 

 stipules. Their flowers are disposed in axillary, ramified multiflorous 

 racemes. 



Byrsantlim* (fig. 326) is very slightly different from Homalium. 

 The flowers have the same general organization, even to the concave 

 receptacle, gynseceuni, and mode of placentation. But the sepals, five 

 or six in number, are thicker, and the petals coriaceous, connivent 

 in the shape of the bowl of a spoon concave within with induplicate 

 edges. The stamens are generally three times as numerous as 

 the petals. There is first one in front of each petal, and outside it 

 a gland is found, then more externally another pair of stamens. 

 These are free, formed of a slender filament and a 2-celled extrorse 

 anther. Round the gynseceum are seen five other glands more inte- 

 rior than the preceding, and alternate with them. The fruit is a 



As many as thirty 2 A com as 



1 In the section Nisa (fig. 325). 



2 Sw., Fl. Ind. Occ, 989, t. 17 — Lindi., in 

 Bot. Reg., t. 1308.— Wall., Fl. As. Bar., t. 

 179. — DelesS., Ic. Sel., iii. t. 53 (Blackivellia). 

 — Vent., Ch. de PI., t. 55-57 (Blackivellia). 

 Wight, Icon., t. 1851. — Bl., Mus. Lugd.-Bat., 

 ii. 28.— Benth., Fl. Rongk,, 122; Fl. Austral., 

 iii. 309; Niger, 361. — Ttjl., in Ann. Sc. Nat., 

 Ser. 4, viii. 58 (Blackivellia), 65 (Myrianthea), 

 67 (Nisa).— Mast., in Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 



497. — Tr. & Pl., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 4. 

 xvii. 118. — Miq., Fl. Ind.-Bat., i. p. ii. 714. 

 — Haev. & Sond., Fl. Cap., i. 72 (Blacl- 

 wellia). 



3 Guillem., in JDeless. Ic. Sel., iii. 30, t. 

 52 (nee Presl). — Lindl., Veg. Kingd., 742, 

 fig. 446.— Payee, Fam. Nat., 83.— B. H., 

 Gen., 800, n. 16. — Anetia Exdl., Gen., n. 

 5088. 



