﻿MR. J. MIERS ON THE LECYTHIDACE.E. 163 



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are supported upon short bracteolated pedicels ; the tubular calyx, adnate to an inferior 

 ovary, is crowned by a border of 6 free, rather small sepals, slightly imbricated in aesti- 

 vation ; they have six, seldom fewer, large petals, somewhat unequal in size, broadly 

 imbricated in aestivation ; the androphorum is large and conspicuous, attached to the 

 claws of the petals and to the disk by its basal annular ring, which is densely covered 

 with short staminiferous appendages ; it is expanded on one side into an incui'ving bare 

 liojula, terminating in an inverted hood, similar to that of Bertholletia, and, in like 



manner, densely echinated with innumerable imbricated appendages, which are terete, 

 bearing in all the lower series, on their clavated summits, each a fertile stamen ; but the 

 upper ones longer, incurved, are mostly bare of stamens ; the stamens consist of a short 

 slender filament, supporting a small anther, formed of 2 oval collateral cells, without 

 connective, which burst along the margin by a longitudinal suture, when they expand 

 into 2 parallel plates. The ovary, always more or less inferior, is crowned by the per- 

 sistent disk, and an inner vertex, generally flat, bearing in the centre a slender terete 

 style, sometimes as long as the sepals, rarely reduced to an umbonate form ; it is termi- 

 nated by a minute, globose, papillose stigma ; the ovary is 4-celled, with severiil OTules 

 in each cell, in 3 or 4 series, all radiating from a fleshy placenta in the axis, each borne 

 upon a distinct funicle. By these characters alone any species of true Lecyilds can be 

 distinguished from all others. The fruit is a pyxidium, generally of great size, Tery 

 thick, densely ligneous, extremely variable in form, and always marked by 2 concentric 

 lines, as in the preceding genera; the lower or calycary zone owes its origin to the 

 tumescent bases of the sepals, while the upper zone, or opercular line of dehiscence, 

 indicates the junction of the disk with the vertex, as seen in the ovary ; the operculum 

 proceeds from the growth of the vertex alone, while the interzonary band simply arises 

 from the enlargement of the disk. The fruit, from its weight, naturally hangs in an 

 inverted position ; and when ripe a swelling is at first noticed around the opercular zone ; 

 and afterwards, by the rupture of the central column, the operculum falls oIT with a 

 portion of the column attached to it : the numerous seeds, sustained by their funicles, 

 now hang down in a bunch and soon fall to the ground, the main body of the shell 

 remaining long suspended from the lofty tree; at this period the fleshy mass of the 

 funicles ferments, and exhales a very nauseous odour. The suspension of the seeds, each 

 by a fleshy funicle nearly as large as itself, is a circumstance hitherto unrecorded in any 

 botanical work : the confused statement of Von Martins, given in a note by Berg*, does 

 not describe any such funicle; on the contrary, it says "funiculum non prodit;" its 

 existence, however, cannot be doubted, and is a circumstance of especial importance, as 

 it offers a broad line of distinction between Lecythis and Eschweilera, genera hitherto 

 confounded together. The seeds of a species abundant in the province of Para are 

 exported to Europe in considerable quantities, and sold here in the shops as Sapucaia- 

 nuts: they have a hard, almost osseous covering, are oblong, somewhat angular, furrowed 

 by 6 to 10 costate ridges, all branching from the hilar scar ; and these ridges contain 

 bundles of spiral threads, which belong to its branching raphe; at first their thick cover- 



» Mart. Flor. Bras. I. c. p. 481 



