80 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
which inhabit almost all the tropical regions of the globe. 
They are 
frutescent, suffrutescent or sometimes climbing plants often bearing 
prickles. 
The leaves are alternate, accompanied by lateral stipules ; 
and the flowers in cymes sometimes umbelliferous, terminal or 
lateral and subaxillary,' sessile or pedunculate. 
Beside the Byttneriads are placed three genera which are very 
Bueltneria salicifolia. 3 
alternate with 

Flower (4). 
nearly related to them, having also five fertile anthers 
five staminodes. 
which has the back of the petals naked or glanduli- 
ferous, anthers generally three-celled and fruit muri- 
cate; Rulingia (fig. 123) and Commersonia, whose 
petals have a large and concave base and a ligulate 
and sometimes short summit. The former have simple 
staminodes, and a smooth or echinate capsule ; the 
These are Ayenia, 
latter have staminodes, generally tripartite, and a 
capsular fruit covered with soft and flexible hairs. 
All the 
preceding genera may be united into the subtribe of Auduettnerie 
having very close affinities with the Lasiopetalee. 
subseries of Zheobromee are found genera in 
which there are in the interval of the staminodes, 
not one, but two or several fertile stamens. 
The Cocoa trees (Fr., Cacaoyers’), (figs. 124-129), 
have regular hermaphrodite flowers. 
small convex receptacle are inserted five valvate 
sepals, and five alternate petals, whose limb is 
contorted in prefloration. 
Rulingia pannosa. 

Fie, 123. 
Dehiscent fruit (2). 
In the second 
On their 
Each of them pre- 
sents a basilar portion, dilated into the shape 
of a spoon, which covers the fertile stamens, a contracted por- 
tion surmounting the first, and quite at the top a limb elon- 
gated in the form of a little band, flattened, obtuse at the summit 

Roxs., Pl. Coromand., i. t. 29.—Wiaut, Icon., 
t., 488.—Bentu., Fl. Hongk., 38.—TR. et PL. 
in Ann. Se. Nat., sér. 4, xvii. 331.—GniseEB., FI. 
Brit. W.-Ind., 92.—H. By., in Adansonia, x. 
177.—Watp., Rep., i. 338; ii. 796; v. 111; 
Ann., i. 107; ii. 166; iv. 322; vii. 432. 
1 Often continued along the branches where 
they form prominent ribs in their adherent por- 
tion; they are detached on a level with a leaf or 
nearly so, but laterally. (See Adansonia, iii, 169.) 
2 Theobroma L., Gen., n. 100.—J., Gen., 276. 
—DC., Prodr., i. 484.—Enpu., Gen., n. 5333. 
—H. Bn., in Adansonia, ii. 170; ix. 338, t. 5, 
figs. 1-6; in Payer Fam. Nat., 291; in Dict. 
Encycl. Se. Méd., xi. 364.—B. H., Gen., 225, 
n. 28.—Cacao T., Inst., 660, t. 444.—ADANS., 
Fam. des PL, ii. 344.—LamMxK., Dict., i. 533; 
Suppl. ii. 7; 201, t. 635.—GÆRIN., Fruct., ii. 
190, t. 122. 
