306 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS, 



Genipa americana. 



gamosepalous, with five or six obtuse crenels, and its funnel-shaped 

 corolla is divided into five or six contorted lobes in the bud. With 



these alternate an equal number of 

 elongate, dorsifixed, nearly sessile 

 anthers inserted near the base of the 

 corolla tube, with two introrse cells, 

 surmounted by pointed prolongation 

 of the connective. The fruit is a 

 corticate berry, with numerous albu- 

 minous seeds plunged in soft pulp. 

 The embryo is flat with wide folia- 

 ceous cotyledons and cylindrical 

 radicle. The flowers of this tree are 

 in few-flowered cymes or even solitary; 

 and the same characters are met with 

 in half a dozen other Genipas from 

 tropical America, the knowledge of 

 which is more recent and often also 

 incomplete. 

 The flowers of the Asiatic and African Genipas, named by Houston ^ 

 Randia, are generally hermaphrodite and more rarely unisexual. The 

 concave receptacle encloses the inferior ovary and supports an entire 

 or divided calyx and a superior corolla. The latter is hypocrateriform, 

 funnel-shaped or campanulate, with five divisions (more rarely 4 or 

 6-10), contorted in prefloration. The stamens, equal in number, 

 inserted at the throat of the corolla, have a filament generally short 

 or nil, and a dorsifixed introrse anther dehiscing by two longitudinal 

 clefts. The ovary mostly has two (more rarely a greater number of) 

 cells, with numerous anatropous ovules inserted on placentas of 

 various form. There are equally numerous variations in the stigma- 

 tiferous lobes of the style, the base of which is surrounded by an 

 epigynous glandular disk often undivided, fusiform. The fruit is a 

 berry surmounted by the persistent calyx or its scar ; the surface is 



Fig. 296. Inflorescence. 



1 Linn. Hort. Cl'iff. 485.— L. Gen. n. 211.— 

 J. Gm. 199; Mem. Mus. vi. 392.— DC. P/o(?r. 

 iv. 384.— Endl. Gen. n. 3304.— B. H. Gen. ii. 

 88, n. 166.— Baker, Fl. Maurit. 141.— Hook. 

 Fl. Ind. iii. 109. — Oxyceros Lour. Fl. Cochinck. 

 (ed. 1790) 150. — Htylocoryne Cay. Icon. iv. 45, t. 

 368 (not W. and Arn.),— C<«ji?m DC. Prodr. iv. 



394 (part). — Ceriacus G^rtx. f. Frtict. iii. 140, 

 t. 28.— Gynopackys Bl. Flora (1825), 134 ; 

 Bij'dr. 983.— Endl. Gen. n. 3310.— lachnosi- 

 phonium Hochst. Flora (1842), 236. — Cant/iiopsis 

 Seem. FL Tit. 166, t. i6.—Cant/iopsis Miq. Fl. 

 Ind.-Bat. ii. 256.— B. H. Gen. ii. 113, n. 234.— 

 H. Bn. Bull, Soc. Linn. Par: 206. 



