328 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Close beside Barringtonia are ranged Careya and Flanclionia 

 which ought not, perhaps, to be generically separated, and all which 

 belong to the warmest regions of Asia and the Indian Archipelago. 

 The former have the exterior stamens longer, and with the interior, 

 destitute of anthers, with the undivided embryo of Barringtonia, 

 The latter has the interior staminodes fertile and shorter than the 

 stamens. The embryo has foliaceous and folded cotyledons, and a 

 very long spirally -rolled radicle. Petersia africana, a large tree of 

 Angola, is also said to have nearly all the characters of a Barring^ 

 tonia, and especially its flower ; but the alternate leaves are punctuate, 

 and its floral receptacle bears, in the interval of the sepals, four 

 large wings which only grow round the fruit in the form of vertical 

 membranes, semi-orbicular and veined.^ 



The flowers of Gustavia present a great resemblance to those of 

 Barringtonia. The inferior ovary is also lodged in the cavity of a 

 turbinate receptacle the margin of which bears a calyx entire, or 

 lobed, or 4-6-fid, and from five to eight imbricate petals. The stamens, 

 very numerous, inserted round the margin of a circular epigynous 

 disk, are free and all fertile, with a basifixed, elongate anther having 

 two linear cells opening near the summit by a pore or short cleft. 

 The inferior ovary is divided into four, five or six pluriovulate cells, 

 and the indehiscent, fibrous fruit, encloses a small number of seeds, 

 similar to those of Eugenia, It comprises fine trees or shrubs of 

 tropical America ; the leaves are alternate. 



In Gustavia^ the stamens form, above and around the ovary, a 

 orown quite regular. Let these same stamens unite at the base and 

 form a sort of tube, but unequal, because those on one side are 

 longer than those on the other, and we have Carinianaj consisting of 

 fine trees of tropical America, the inferior ovary of which, often 

 trilocular, becomes, besides, quite a peculiar fruit. It is a sort of 



1 With doubt we place here the two genera leaves, has the habit of the Ithizophorece. The 



Fcetidia and Sonneratia, recently referred by flowers, 3-8-merous, have a convex receptacle, 



Bentham and Hookek (Gen. 724, 784), the one with an ovary adnate only in its lower part, 



to anomalous Mi/rtacece, the other to Lithrariece. The cells are numerous and raultiovulate. 



Fcetidia, native of the eastern isles of tropical There is also a very large number of stamens, 



Africa, has 3-5-merou8 apetalous flowers, with and the sepals are valvate coriaceous persistent, 



numerous stamens inserted above an inferior The corolla is wanting or reduced to long 



ovary, with altemisepalous cells. In the inter- narrow tongues. The fruit is in great part free, 



nal angle of the latter is found a pluriovulate finally coriaceous, indehiscent and polysper- 



placenta. The fruit is dry and woody, and the mous. These maritime plants are foimd on 



leaves are alternate without stipules. Sonneratia, nearly all the tropical shores of the old world, 

 with opposite entire coriaceous and exstipulate 



