THE ANONACEE OF BRITISH INDIA 
By G. KING. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Tse family of Anonacee is a very natural one. It consists of about six hundred species 
of woody plants, a large proportion of which are climbers. Not one of them is herbaceous or 
annual; all have simple exstipulate alternate leaves; while their seeds have in every instance 
large ruminate albumen and a small embryo. With the exception of the two Australian 
shrubs which form the genus Zupomatia, the flowers of all have a convex or flat receptacle or 
torus, and a double perianth of which the symmetry (except in the genera Tetrapetalum and 
Disepalum) is trimerous. The stamens are, in all the genera except Eupomatia, hypogynous; 
and, in by far the majority of the species, they are numerous, their connectives and 
anther-cells being elongate and having either lateral or extrorse dehiscence (introrse only 
in Eupomatia). The pistils are numerous and distinct, and they ripen into a number of 
indehiscent 1- or more-seeded, often pulpy, berries which, in all the Asiatic species, remain 
: quite distinct from each other; but which in some American and African species become 
united.’ The floral ‘organs do not present so great a variety of structure as is the case 
in many other orders. The various forms presented by these have been admirably described 
and illustrated by M. Baillon in the pages of Adansonia and in his Histoire des Plantes?: : 
and, in later years, by Drs. Engler and Prantl in their Pflanzenfamilien®:. while the taxonomic 
value of the various modifications in form of the vegetative and reproductive organs has 
been discussed” both by the first of the authors just named, and by Sir J. D. ‘Hooker and the 
late Dr. T. Thomson in their fragmentary Flora Indica. To the books just named, and to other — 
works on morphology, I would refer the reader who has access to a good botanical ‘library, 
3 Lier vols. 7 and 8. 
2 Vol. 1 (Paris, 1868), pp. 193 e¢ seq. 
5 Natirl. Pflanzenfamilien, III, pp. 23 et seq. 
Ann. Roy. Bor. Garp. Cateutra Yor. IV. 
