278 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



surmounted by a style, more or less eccentric,^ more or less 

 leugtliened, ^ dilated at its apex into a small stigmatifcrons 

 head. On its anterior wall, the ovary cell presents a placenta 

 bearing above two collateral descendent ovules, supported by an 

 arched funicle sometimes dilated above the micropyle ; this is 

 directed inwards and upwards under the point of attachment, the 

 raphe being dorsal. The fruit is a drupe, glabrous or pubescent, 

 whose stone contains a descendent seed with abundant fleshy albu- 

 men, and in whose axis is found an inverted embryo, having a short 

 superior radicle and large, foliaceous, thin cotyledons, flat, or arched. 



Emmotum fagifolium. 



Fig. 327. Hermaphrodite flower (f). 



Fig. 328. Longitudinal section of 

 hennaphrodite flower. 



The Mappias are shrubs, sometimes climbing, or trees with alternate, 

 simple leaves, generally entire, penninerved, reticulate. The flowers ^ 

 are disposed in more or less ramified clusters of cymes rising from 

 the axil of the leaves, but which, more often drawn up on the 

 branches much higher than the axil, detach themselves laterally or 

 are even united towards the summit in a kind of terminal panicles. 

 These plants grow in most tropical countries ; in tropical Africa 

 where four or five species are known ; in South America where quite 

 as many are found; there is also a species, early known in the 

 Antilles, and another very common and very variable in form in the 

 East Indies.* 



Beside Mappia are placed Poraqiieiba and Emmotum, American 



1 In certain American species the hase of the 

 style is accompanied hy two projecting horns, 

 thick and obtuse (perhaps rudimentary styles ?), 

 also met with in several other genera of Map- 

 pica. On the side sometimes occupied by these 

 projections, the style, more or less crooked, bears 

 a longitudinal groove more pronounced in its 

 inferior part. 



^ When it is most elongated, particularly in 

 the African species attributed to the genus lea- 



cilia, it is folded back more or less closely upon 

 itself (once or twice) in the bud. 



'' The base, as usually happens in aU the 

 plants of this series, is hollowed into a slight 

 depression or cup at whose bottom is articu- 

 lated the attenuated apex of the pedicel. 



■• Sab. in Trans. Sort. Soc. iv. 453 {Chrijso- 

 balanus, ex Miers). — Wight, Spic. Keilgher. i. 

 t. 23; Icon.t. 955 [Stemommis). — Guillem. et 

 Perk. Fl. Sen. Tent. i. 105 (/raciwa).— Macf. 



