288 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
capsule opening at the summit into as many panels as there are 
carpels and styles, that is to say, four or five. The seeds mostly 
abort, except one, which fills almost 
Byrsanthus Brownii. the whole of the fruit, and contains 
under its coats a fleshy albumen, en- 
veloping a conical superior radicle with 
large foliaceous cotyledons. The leaves 
are alternate, stipulate, and the articu- 
late flowers are disposed like those of 
Homalium, upon ramified axes ; but their 
pedicels are extremely short. Two 
species’ of Byrsanthus are described, na- 
tives of tropical Western Africa, trees 
Fra, 326, with simple alternate leaves, and flowers 
Brie dy. collected in racemes or spikes. 


VII. PANGIUM SERIES. 
The flowers in this series are dicecious or polygamous. Those of 
Pangium’® (figs. 327-329) have a gamosepalous, valvate calyx un- 
equally torn at anthesis. More internally the convex receptacle 
bears from five to eight imbricated petals, each presenting within 
its base a tolerably flattened scale. The stamens are indefinite in num- 
ber in the male flower, and each formed of a thick filament, swollen 
and fleshy, tapering at the apex, which supports an oval two-celled 
introrse anther, dehiscing by two longitudinal clefts. In the female 
flower the perianth is the same, and the stamens, few in number, 
are generally reduced to hypogynous tongues. The gynæceum is 
composed of a sessile ovary, surmounted by a wide glandular plate 
stigmatiferous, irregularly divided into two, three, or four lobes by 
shallow furrows. In the interior of the ovary there is but one 
cavity, with two or three parietal placentas, but little prominent, 
each supporting a variable number of anatropous ovules, horizontal 

1 Mast., in Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 468. 178; Mus. Lugd.-Bat., i. 14.—BENN., Pl. Jav. 
2 Rumpu., Herb. Amboin., ii. 182, t. 59—  Rar., 205, 208, t. 48.—Linpu., Veg. Kingd., 
REINW., in Syllog. Pl. Soc. Ratish., ii, 12.— 323, fig. 223.—B. H., Gen., 129,n. 23.— Lem. & 
Bu., De Nov. Quib. Plant, Fam. Exp.(ex Ann. Denn, Tr. Gén., 427.—SCHNIZL, Iconogr., t. 
Se. Nat., sér. 2, ii. 90); Rumphia, iv. 20, t. 195 a. 
