FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS 177 
other equally good but utterly inexpressible qualities.” The seeds of 
G. Indica yield cocum oil, used in India as an adulterant for butter, 
and also as a drug. 
Another plant of this 
family producing an edible 
fruit is the mammey apple 
(Mammea Americana), the 
“mamey sapota” of the 
West Indies. It has a 
somewhat insipid flavor, but 
is popalar among the natives 
(see Fig. 156.) Pentadesma 
butyraceum is the butter tree 
of Sierra Leone. Calophyl- 
lum is another rather large 
genus noted for the oil 
Fig. 158. Flowering branch and detached fruit of Dip- yielded by its seeds, called 
terocarpus retusus, greatly reduced. Redrawn from Engler. Keena oil: the timber pro- 
2 
duced by these trees is also of good quality. 
Family Hypericaceae. St. John’s-wort Family. Contains about 10 
genera and 280 species, mostly herbs and shrubs of wide distribution, 
a few trees in tropical regions: They have opposite or whorled leaves, 
and solitary or panicled flowers with 
4-5 sepals, 4-5 petals, innumerable 
stamens and an ovary of 1-7 carpels, 
becoming a capsule in fruit. 
The St. John’s-worts embrace sev- 
eral of our annoying weeds, as well as 
some of our most picturesque wild 
plants. The species of Hypericum 
shown in the illustration (see Fig. 
157) is a native of the Southern States 
in hilly situations, and has very large 
golden-yellow flowers, rendering it de- 
sirable for cultivation. Among our 
familiar plants belonging to this fam- 
ily may be mentioned the spotted St. 
John’s-wort (H. maculatum) the orange 
grass or pinweed (Sarothra gentian- Fig. 159. Reaumerta Persica, an entire 
oides); and the St. Peter’s-wort (Ascy- plant, greatly reduced. Redrawn from En- 
rum hypericoides). The black or pel- ' ®'** 
lucid dots in the leaves of hypericaceous plants contain an essential 
oil. 
