LYTHRARIACE^. 439 



concave than in the female of hermaphrodite flowers; and the 

 gynsecium, reduced to small dimensions, has, nevertheless, an ovary, 

 with two parietal placentas with sterile ovules at the margin, and a 

 short style not stigmatiferous at its enlarged summit. The fruit 

 clothed at the base with the persistent receptacle and calyx, is a 



Crypteronia leptostachya. 



Fig. 414. Male flower (|). Fig. 415. Loug. sect, of male flower. 



globular loculicidal capsule with two, more rarely three cells, and 

 valves united above by the persistent style, charged at the middle of 

 their internal surface or base with numerous narrow, elongate seeds, 

 with soft external coat, attenuated at both extremities to a point or 

 wing, and containing under a thin layer of albumen a fleshy embryo, 

 with thick cylindrical radicle. Crypteronia comprises trees or shrubs 

 from the warm regions of India, Malaya, and the Philippine Isles. 

 In the four or five species known,^ the leaves are opposite, petiolate, 

 without stipules, simple and entire. The flowers, small and nume- 

 rous, are in simple axillary or ramified terminal clusters. 



"With doubt we here provisionally place Psiloxylon,^ sometimes 

 referred to the Myrtacem. It has polygamous or dioecious flowers. 

 In the male flower the receptacle is in the form of a shallow cup, 

 bearing on its margin five or six sepals, at first imbricate, and an 

 equal number of perigynous petals which fall early. At the same 

 level are inserted ten stamens, ^yq of which are superposed to the 

 petals and five alternate, with free filaments, and bilocular introrse 

 anthers. The gynsecium is sterile though it has distinct cells, pla- 

 centas and ovules ; but the latter are very small and imperfect. In 

 the female flower, in which the stamens are reduced to staminodes, 

 the gynsecium is fertile ; the ovary, sessile or very shortly stipitate, 



^ Pl. Hook. Journ. iv. 475, t. 16 {Henslowia). 30. — Endl. 6^m. 1205.— Tul.^ww. Sc. Nat. ser. 



— MiQ. FL Lid. Bat. i. p. i. 715 {Henslovia). — 4, vi. 138. — H. Bn. Adansonia, x. 39. — Baker, 



Walp. Ann. iv. 692. FL Maurit. 101. — Fropiera Hook, f, Journ^ 



'^ Dup.-Th. ex Gaudich. Freycin. Voy. Bot. Linn. Soc. v. 1, t. 1 : Gen. 725, n. 76. 



