464 MR. G. BENTHAM ON AFRICAN ANONACE^. 



distinct, are confined to Africa, or at furthest extend to Madagascar. Six are common to 

 Asia and Africa : of these, two, Popowia and Oxymitra, are small genera, of which the 

 African species have a somewhat different character from the Asiatic ones ; and the other 

 four, TJvaria, Artabotrys, Uiiona, and Melodortmi, are more considerable Asiatic genera, 

 represented in Africa by one, two, or three species. One genus, Anona, is a large 

 American one, unknown in Asia, but represented by three species in Africa and two in 

 Madagascar ; and, lastly, Xylopia is also chiefly American, but Avith two or three Asiatic 

 as well as African species. Anaxagorea, a very distinct genus common to America 

 and Asia, has not yet been found in Africa ; nor do we as yet know, from the latter 

 continent, of any Anonaceae allied to Thceantlms or Seteropetalum, two small groups, 

 the one Asiatic, the other American, so similar in character that they might well be 

 united in one genus. 



Several African Anonaceae have edible fruits (this quality is particularly attributed 

 by collectors to the Anonas, to Po^wioia Kirhii, and to most of the Uvarias) ; and many 

 are aromatic, which is especially noted of the Xylo])ia cethiopica or Malaghatta pepper 

 and Monodora myristica or Calabash nutmeg ; and the woods of the arboreous ones are 

 said to be hard and good. The climbing species, which bear in Asia so large a proportion 

 to the whole, are but very few in Africa. 



1. UvARiA, Linn. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PI. 23. 

 This genus, after having been variously extended and reduced l^y different botanists, 

 has been limited by Hooker and Thomson to those species in which the petals of each 

 series, and more especially the inner ones, are imbricate in the bud as in the true 

 American Guatterias, which the majority of Asiatic species much resemble in habit and 

 in the shape of the flowers, differing only in their pluriovulate carpels. Three of the 

 African species are quite conformable to the ordinary Asiatic type ; but in U. connivens 

 and U. fusca the petals are much thicker and less spreading, and the outer ones valvate, 

 thus approaching Melodonim, to which genus I should have been inclined to refer it, 

 were it not that the inner petals are nearly as large as the outer ones, one of them very 

 much overlapping the two others in the bud, and all are much more open than in any 

 Melodora I know. 



1. U. CHAMiE, P. de Beauv. PL Ow. et Ben. ii. 42, t. 83 ; ramulis junioribus foliisque 

 ferrugineo-tomentosis glabratisve, foliis ovalibus ellipticisve obtusis subacumina- 

 tisve breviter petiolatis subtus pilis stellatis minutis conspersis, peduncuHs 2-5-nis 

 extra-axillaribus brevibus, sepalis basi v. ad medium coalitis ferrugineo-tomentosis, 

 petalis obovatis patentibus, antherarum connectivo apice truncate, baccis stipitatis 

 oblongis ferrugineo-tomentosis. — Arbor parva. Polia majora 5 poll, longa, 2^ poll, 

 lata, nonnulla tamen multo minora. Baccse 6 ad 38, ^1 poll, longse, stipitibus 

 3-4-linearibus. Semina 2-6, septis horizontalibus separata, oblique oblonga, com- 

 pressa, testa nitida, hilo incrassato umbilicato. 



Unona Chamoe, Guill. et Perr. Fl. Seneg. T, t. 3. f. 2. U. macrocarpa, DC. Syst. Veg. i. 489. 



Senegambia {Leprieur, Heudelot) ; on the Santiago in Oware (P. de Beauvois) ; at Nupe on the Niger 

 {Barter). 



