BIXACEÆ. 287 
ferior ovary is unilocular, with three, four, or a greater number of 
placentas, each bearing one,’ two, or a larger number of anatropous 
and descendent ovules. The free 
summit of the ovary is surmounted 
by style branches equal in number 
to the placentas with which they 
alternate, and stigmatiferous at their 
scarcely swollen apex. ‘The fruit 
is a capsule round which persists 
the receptacle and the hardened 
perianth. It opens at the summit 
into as many valves as there are 
Homalium (Nisa) involucratum. 

4 
s ing h s 
carpel separating to allow the seed Re Ravage: 
to escape which have a fleshy albu- Bud (5). Long. sect. of bud. 
men, an axile embryo, with but 
little developed foliaceous cotyledons. As many as thirty’ Acomas 
are known, natives of all the warm regions of the world. They are 
trees or shrubs, with alternate simple petiolate leaves, with or without 
stipules. Their flowers are disposed in axillary, ramified multiflorous 
racemes. 
Byrsanthus® (fig. 326) is very slightly different from Homalium. 
The flowers have the same general organization, even to the concave 
receptacle, gynæceum, and mode of placentation. But the sepals, five 
or six in number, are thicker, and the petals coriaceous, connivent 
in the shape of the bowl of a spoon concave within with induplicate 
edges. The stamens are generally three times as numerous as 
the petals. There is first one in front of each petal, and outside it 
a gland is found, then more externally another pair of stamens. 
These are free, formed of a slender filament and a 2-celled extrorse 
Round the gynæceum are seen five other glands more inte- 
The fruit is a 
anther. 
rior than the preceding, and alternate with them. 

1 In the section Nisa (fig. 325). 497.—Tr. & Pu., in Ann. Se, Nat. sér. 4. 
2 Sw., Fl. Ind. Occ., 989, t. 17.—JLINDL., in 
Bot. Reg., t. 1308.—Watu., Pl. As. Rar., t. 
179.—Dzcess., Ic. Sel., iii. t. 53 (Blackwellia). 
—VENT., Ch. de PL, t. 55-57 (Blackwellia). 
WiGur, Zcon., t. 1851.—Bu., Mus. Lugd.-Bat., 
li. 28.— BENTH., Fl, Hongk., 122; Fl. Austral., 
iii. 309 ; Niger, 361.—Tut., in Ann. Se. Nat. 
sér. 4, vi. 58 (Blackwellia), 65 (Myrianthea), 
67 (Nisa).—Mast., in Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 
xvii. 118.—Miq., Fl. Ind.-Bat., i. p. ii. 714. 
—Hary. & Sonp., Fl. Cap., i. 72 (Blact- 
wellia). 
3 GUILLEM., in Deless. Ic. Sel., iii. 30, t. 
52 (nec PREsL).—Linpr., Veg. Kingd., 742, 
fig. 446.—Payer, Fam. Nat., 83.—B. H., 
Gen. 800, n. 16.— Anetia ENDL, Gen., n. 
5088. 
