RUBIACE2E. 



32 



pericarp, probably dry and coriaceous at maturity. It is a glabrous 

 plant with large opposite leaves accompanied by two large foliaceous 

 interpetiolar stipules. The inflorescence, situate at the end of a small 

 axillary branch which bears either leaves or only their stipules, is a 

 compound capituhform cyme with short pedicels, the final divisions 

 of which become uniparous. It is surrounded by three unequal pairs 

 of bracts forming an involucre, so that the inflorescence is nearly 

 that of a Cepluelis.^ 



IX. OLDENLANDIA SERIES. 



This genus, to which we shall restore many others that have been 

 successively separated from it, was founded in 1703 by Plumier. In 

 the true Oldcnlandia^ of this author (fig. 311-314), the flowers are 

 of five or oftener four parts and nearly always hermaphrodite. The 

 concave obconical or globular receptacle lodges in its cavity a 

 bilocular ovary, surmounted by a style with two short stigmatifero us 

 branches and a little developed epigynous disk. In each ovarian cell 

 is a placenta globular or nearly so, supported by a foot inserted at a 

 variable point of the interlocular partition from the base to the 



' Three genera of doubtful affinity, imper- 

 fectly known to us, especially the first two, have 

 been ranged in this group, viz. Qohiaiiera, 

 Zasiostoma and Praravbda. Gonianera is from 

 Sumatra. Its flowers would be pentamerous, 

 its corolla valvate ; the ovary bilocular and 

 multiovulate, surmounted by a style with long 

 claviform stigmatiferous branches. Its poly- 

 spermous fruit is a berry. The flowers are 

 axillary, accompanied with bracts. Zasiostoma, 

 a glabrous shrub of New Guinea and New Ire- 

 land, with the opposite leaves of Loranthus, has 

 axillary capituliform inflorescences. The flowers 

 are said to be tetramerous, with entire calyx, 

 valvate corolla, and the fruit fleshy and poly- 

 spermous. Pra/avvtia, a shrub of Borneo, with 

 opposite leaves, has polygamo-mouoecious, 4-6- 

 merous flowers, in axillary cymes mistaken for 

 capiiules, remarkable for their wide involucrant 



bracts. The sepals are similar to the bracts 

 and accrescent. The corolla is valvate and the 

 gyntecium formed of a 6-10 -celled ovary, sur- 

 mounted by a large disk and a 6-IO-branched 

 style. The ovules are very numerous on 

 placentas represented as branched. The fruit 

 is sr,id to be fleshy. 



2 Pll-m. ^\v. PI. Amer. Gen. (1703) 42, t. 36. 

 — L. Gen. n. 154.— J. Gen. 198.— Lamk. III. t. 

 61.— G.EKTN. Fruct. i. t. 30.— DC. Prodr. iv. 

 424.— B. H. Gen. ii. 58, 1228, n. 83.— Baker, 

 Fl. Maurit. 138.— Hook. Fl. Ind. iii. 64.— 

 Listeria Neck. Elem. n. 456 (ex DC). — Geron- 

 togea Ch. et Schlchtl, LinncBa, iv. 154. — Gono- 

 theca Bl. ex DC. Prodr. iv. 429.— Endl. Gen. 

 n. Z2Zd.— Kohautia Ch. et Schlchtl, loc. cit. 

 156. — Karamyscheioia FiscH. et Mey. Bull. 

 Mosc. (1838) 266.— T/t€t/odis A. Rich. FL Abyss. 

 i. 364., 



Y ii 



