BIXACEÆ. 277 
which there is generally no trace in the male flowers, is composed 
of a free ovary, surmounted by a variable number (two to ten or 
twelve) of stylary branches, the summits stigmatiferous dilated, 
often bilobed, reflexed or revolute. In the interior of the ovary 
may be observed an equal number of parietal placentas advancing 
sometimes even to the axis of the cell, where they come in contact, 
each supporting two or a larger number' of descendent anatropous 
ovules, with micropyle looking upwards and outwards. The fruit 
is a drupe, the pericarp finally containing as many nuts as there had 
been incomplete cells. In each one or more seeds are found, the 
coats covering a fleshy albumen, and an axile embryo with coty- 
ledons often orbicular. 
Flacourtia consists of trees or shrubs, frequently thorny, inha- 
biting all the warm regions of the Old World. The leaves are alter- 
nate, petiolate, articulate, accompanied by stipules, generally very 
small, with small flowers disposed in axillary cymes, or grouped upon 
simple or ramified axes, analogous to spikes, racemes or umbels. A 
great number of species have been described,? now reduced to a 
dozen, comprising Bennettia Horsfieldii à Javanese species, with 
small female flowers, often trimerous. 
Beside Hacourtia are ranged: Xylosma (figs. 301, 302), scarcely 
differing from it by its flowers in four, five, or six parts, its pla- 
centas from two to six in number, its style entire or almost wanting, 
or divided above into lobes corresponding in number with the pla- 
centas ; Dovyalis, the sepals of which are scarcely imbricated, and the 
placentas supporting a much smaller number of ovules; Zrimeria, 
which has as many petals as sepals—viz., from three to five, and the 
flowers of Dovyalis, with a fruit which opens at the apex ; Peridiscus, 
the ovary of which, surmounted by a tolerably large number of 
radiating styles, is thickened into a disk as far as the middle of its 
height, and is surrounded by from four to five almost valvate sepals, 
and by a verticil of tolerably numerous stamens, the filaments being 

1 There are often two, superposed one to the 
other, or nearly so, the upper being early less 
developed than the lower. They have two 
Fl, Ind.-Bat., i. p. ii. 102; F1. Sum., 158.— 
Turcz., in Bull, Mosc. (1863), i. 553.—H., By., 
in Adansonia, x. 250.—TUL., in Ann. Sc. Nat., 
envelopes. 
? H. B. K., Nov. Gen. et Spec., vii. 238.— 
Roxs., Pl. Corom., t. 68, 69, 222.—Wiaut & 
ARN., Prodr., i. 29.—REICHB., Consp., 188 
(Rhamnopsis). — Wieut, Icon., t. 85.— A. 
Gray, Amer, Explor, Exp., Bot., 75.—MIq., 
sér, 5, ix. 340,—Otty., Fl. Trop. Afr., i. 120.— 
Watp., Ann., vii. 228. 
3 Mio, Fl. Ind.-Bat. i. p. ii, 105.— 
Beytu., in Journ. Linn. Soc., v. Suppl., 87.— 
B. H., Gen., 128, n. 18.—H. BN., in Adan- 
sonia, x. 251.—WALP., Ann., vii. 228. 
