420 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Soulamea amara. 



from tropical Asia and Oceania, have the trifoliolate leaves of Picro- 

 dendron, or compound-pinnate ones ; but the flowers are diplos- 

 temonous, and the drupaceous fruit contains in each stone a seed 

 with conduplicate cotyledons. 



Irvingia, consisting of shrubs (not bitter) from tropical Western 

 Africa (and which may certainly be attributed to this group), has, 

 on the contrary, simple leaves, accompanied by axillary stipules, 

 diplosternonous flowers, whose ovary only contains one descending 

 ovule in each cell, and the drupaceous fruit presents a hard stone, 

 with a single seed, the embryo being sometimes albuminous, some- 

 times exalbuminous. In Soulamea (figs. 491, 492), consisting of very 



bitter trees from the Moluccas, New Ca- 

 ledonia, and the neighbouring islands, 

 the leaves are simple or compound- 

 pinnate, and the polygamous, trimerous, 

 diplosternonous flowers have a two- 

 celled uniovulate ovary. The coriaceous, 

 indehiscent, compressed fruit, edged by 

 a more or less developed wing, contains 

 one or two seeds, with scanty albumen. 

 Amaroria, hitherto incompletely known, seems to represent a lessened 

 type of the preceding genus, as with a floral organization analogous 

 to that of Soulamea, it only possesses one unsymmetrical one-celled 

 biovulate ovary, to which succeeds a dry, nut-shaped fruit, whose 

 bony stone contains a single seed. Kceberlinia, consisting of Mexican 

 subaphyllous shrubs, is attached to this series. It has tetramerous 

 and diplosternonous flowers, but it is separated from all the pre- 

 ceding genera by the indefinite number of ovules, bi-seriafe in 

 each cell. 1 



Fig. IHl. 

 Fruit. 



Fig. 492. 

 Long. sect, of fruit. 



1 Brunellia has been ascribed to ibis group. 

 (R. & Fay., Prodr., 71, t. 12.— K., in Ann. Sc. 

 Nat., ser. 1, ii. 361.— DC, Prodr., ii. S7.— 

 Endl., Gen., n. 5!)7l.— B. H., Gen., 313, n. 

 21). But MM. Ti.iana & Plakchon (in 

 Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 5, xiv. 307) say it appeared 

 to them "by its general features to more nearly 

 approach the Saxifragce-Weiwmanniece" The 

 flowers are polygamous, dioecious, and apetalous. 

 They have a slightly concave receptacle lined 

 with a bristling disk cut upon the edges into as 

 man_\ double lobes as there are sepals — viz., from 

 lour to six, and sometimes more. The calyx is 

 valvate. The slightly perigynous stamens are 

 double in number to the sepals, some opposite, 



others alternate, sterile in the female flowers. 

 The carpels, rudimentary in the male flowers, 

 are inserted at the bottom of the receptacle 

 alternately with the sepals, free, each formed of 

 a one-celled ovary containing two descending 

 ovules with superior and exterior micropyle, and 

 tapering above into a subulate style. The fruit 

 is formed of one or several bivalve capsules with 

 cartilaginous endocarp separating from the 

 exocarp, and contains one or two seeds, with 

 linear hilum and Qeshy albumen surrounding 

 an embryo with oval flat cotyledons and superior 

 radicle. Brunellia consists of trees, not bitter, 

 often tomentose or covered with prickles, with 

 opposite or verticillate stipulate leaves, simple 



