146 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Moms Ampalis, a species from Madagascar and the Mascarene 

 islands, has been distinguished with a generic title under the name 

 of Ampalis, because its male calyx is less clearly imbricate than 

 that of the Mulberries and because its fruit, arranged in a false 

 spike much more elongate, encloses one seed with embryo destitute 

 of albumen, fleshy plano-convex cotyledons and accumbent radicle. 

 It is a genus of little value. The same may be said of Paratrophis, 

 trees of New Zealand and the Pacific Ocean which have all the 

 external characters and the dioecious inflorescence of Ampalis, but 

 the sepals are not accrescent and do not become fleshy around the 

 fruit, at the same time the embryo, almost totally destitute of 

 albumen, has the radicle accumbent to the cotyledons, which are 

 much larger and nearly foliaceous, unequal, conduplicate and 

 longitudinally plicate, in such a manner that the largest envelopes 

 the smallest in its concavity. Psendomorus is equally oceanic and 

 almost constantly dioecious. The leaves are accompanied by 

 caducous amplexicaul stipules, and the flowers are nearly those of 

 the preceding genera. The female calyx, like that of Paratrophis, 

 persists without growing to the base of the drupaceous fruit. But 

 the seed encloses an embryo destitute of albumen or nearly so, and 

 the radicle is accumbent to the flat, thick and fleshy cotyledons. 



In tropical America, the analogue of the preceding types is 

 Tropins, which, with the same general characters, presents these 

 two peculiarities : the female floral receptacle becomes more or 

 less concave ; which renders the unilocular and uniovulate ovary 

 partly inferior, and the female (perigynous) calyx gamosepalous, 

 in the form of a conical sac with superior dentate opening, closely 

 surrounding the gynajcium and the fruit {Tropliideœ). 



The Broussonetieœ are easily distinguished from the preceding 

 genera by their female glomerules being collected on a spherical 

 receptacle 1 instead of grouped on a common axis more or less 

 elongate and flattened (in general form of a spike). This can be easily 



Arbor, et Fuit. Brit. iii. 1343.— H. B. K. Nov. s.PIledela Ren». Ann. P. 3 ;— Bur. Prodi: 220), 



Gen. et S/jcc. ii. 33. — Mia. PI. Jung h. 42; Fl. a tree unknown to us, which, with spikelike male 



lud.-Bat. Suppl. i. 415. — A. Gray, Man. ed. 5, inflorescence, has solitary female flowera, but ac- 



444. — Chapm. Fl. S. Unit. St. 415. — Benth. companied by an involucre formed of numerous 



Fl. Ilongk. 323. — Seem. Fl. Vit. 245. — Grbn. et imbricate and pluriseriate bracts. The unio- 



Godr. Fl. deFr. iii, 102. vulate ovary is described as " semi-adherent ; " 



1 This enables us to consider provisionally a character which at the same time brings this 



as an intermediate type between the two groups plant near Tropins (vulg. Bois de sagaie, de 



Mailliardia borbonita (Frapp, et Duchtre, Note requin, de Gaillard, de Maillet). 



