464 MR. G. BENTHAM ON AFRICAN ANONACE^. 
distinct, are confined to Africa, or at furthest extend to Madagascar. Six are common to 
Asia and Africa : of these, two, Popowia and Oxymitra, are small genera, of which the 
African species have a somewhat different character from the Asiatic ones ; and the other 
four, Uvaria, Artabotrys, Unona, and Melodorum, are more considerable Asiatic genera, 
represented in Africa by one, two, or three species. One genus, Anona, is a large 
American one, unknown in Asia, but represented by three species in Africa and two in 
Madagascar ; and, lastly, Xylopia is also chiefly American, but with two or three Asiatic 
as well as African species. Anaxagorea, a very distinct genus common to America 
and Asia, has not yet been found in Africa ; nor do we as yet know, from the latter 
continent, of any Anonacese allied to Thcecmthus or Heteropetalum, two small groups, 
the one Asiatic, the other American, so similar in character that they might well be 
united in one genus. 
Several African Anonaceae have edible fruits (this quality is particularly attributed 
by collectors to the Anonas, to Popowia Kirkii, and to most of the Uvarias) ; and many 
are aromatic, which is especially noted of the Xylopia cethiopica or Malaghatta pepper 
and Monodora myristica or Calabash nutmeg ; and the woods of the arboreous ones are 
said to be hard and good. The climbing species, which bear in Asia so large a proportion 
to the whole, are but very few in Africa. 
1. Uvaria, Linn. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PL 23. 
This genus, after having been variously extended and reduced by different botanists, 
has been limited by Hooker and Thomson to those species in which the petals of each 
series, and more especially the inner ones, are imbricate in the bud as in the true 
American Guatterias, which the majority of Asiatic species much resemble in habit and 
in the shape of the flowers, differing only in their pluriovulate carpels. Three of the 
African species are quite conformable to the ordinary Asiatic type ; but in JJ. cormivens 
and 77. fusca the petals are much thicker and less spreading, and the outer ones valvate, 
thus approaching Melodorum, to which genus I should have been inclined to refer it, 
were it not that the inner petals are nearly as large as the outer ones, one of them very 
much overlapping the two others in the bud, and all are much more open than in any 
Melodora I know. 
1. U. CHAMiE, P. de Beauv. PI. Ow. et Ben. ii. 42, t. 83 ; ramulis junioribus foliisque 
ferrugineo-tomentosis glabratisve, foliis ovalibus ellipticisve obtusis subacumina- 
tisve breviter petiolatis subtus pilis stellatis minutis conspersis, pednnculis 2-5-nis 
extra-axillaribus brevibus, sepalis basi v. ad medium coalitis ferrugineo-tomentosis, 
petalis obovatis patentibus, antherarum connectivo apice truncato, baccis stipitatis 
oblongis ferrugineo-tomentosis. — Arbor parva. Polia majora 5 poll, longa, 2J poll, 
lata, nonnulla tamen multo minora. BaccaB 6 ad 18, |-1 poll, longae, stipitibus 
3-4-linearibus. Semina 2-6, septis horizontalibus separata, oblique oblonga, com- 
pressa, testa nitida, hilo incrassato umbilicato. 
55 
<b, Guiil. et Perr. Fl. Seneg. 7, t. 3. f. 
{Leprieur, Heudelot) ; on the Santiag 
U. macrocarpa, DC. Syst. Veg. i. 489. 
on the Niger 
arter) 
