XT. BlXINEiE. 65 



Order XL BIXINE>E. 



Flowers regular. Sepals 2 to 6, usually 4 or 5 and imbricate. Petals either 

 none, or as many as the sepals, or indefinite, imbricate or contorted in the bud, 

 deciduous. Stamens hypogynous or slightly perigynous, indefinite or very rarely 

 definite. Anthers 2-celled, opening by longitudinal slits or rarely by terminal 

 pores. Torus often bearing glands or a glandular disk. Ovary free, usually 1- 

 celled, with 8 or more, rarely 2 or 1, parietal placentas. Styles or stigmas as 

 many as placentas, free or united. Ovules 2 or more to each placenta, amphi- 

 tropous or anatropous. Fruit succulent or dry, opening in valves, bearing the 

 placentas in the middle, or indehiscent. Seeds usually few, with a copious and 

 fleshy or rarely thin albumen. Embryo in the axis, straight or curved, the radicle 

 next the hilum, the cotyledons usually broad. — Trees or shrubs, in one genus 

 twiners. Leaves alternate, simple, and often toothed, or rarely palmately lobed 

 or divided. Flowers axillary or terminal, solitary or in clusters, corymbs, racemes, 

 or panicles. 



A considerable Order, dispersed over the tropical or warm regions both of the Old and the 

 New World. 



Tkiee I. Sixes. — Petals broad, contorted, without a scale or basal appendage. Anthers 

 bursting by pores or short slits. 

 Capsule almost 3 — 5-celled. Seeds curved. Trees or shrubs. Leaves 



digitate. Flowers large 1. Coohlospekmum. 



Tkibe II. Flacourties. — Petals small, imbricate or none. Anthers short, bursting by slits. 

 Seeds straight. Trees or shrubs. Leaves simple. Flowers small. 

 Sepals 4 to 6. Petals as many. Anthers with an appendage .... 2. Scolopia. 

 Sepals 4 to 6. Petals none. Anthers without any appendage .... 3. Xylosma. 



1. COCHLOSPERMUM, Kunth. 



(Seeds twisted.) 



Flowers hermaphrodite. Sepals 5, imbricate, deciduous. Petals 5, large. 

 Stamens numerous. Anthers oblong or linear, opening in terminal pores or very 

 short fissures. Placentas 3 to 5, projecting more or less into the cavity of the 

 ovary, with numerous ovules. Style simple. Capsule 3 to 5-valved, the mem- 

 branous endocarp separating from the pericarp. Seeds kidney-shaped or spirally 

 curved, covered with wool or bordered by long hairs. — Trees, shrubs, or rarely 

 undershrubs, usually yielding a yellow juice. Leaves palmately lobed or divided. 

 Eacemes loose, few-flowered, in the upper axils or in terminal panicles. Flowers 

 large, yellow. 



Besides the 2 foUowing species of the 4 peculiar to Australia, there is 1 known from 

 southern India, 2 from Africa, and about 5 from South America. 

 Calyx and inilorescence glabrous or slightly glandular pubescent. 



Leaves glabrous, with deep ovate-lanceolate or oblong lobes ... . . 1. C. Gillivresi. 



Leaves glabrous, divided to the base into narrow-oblong, pedate segments . 2. C. Gregorii. 



1. C. Gillivrsei (after John M'GilUvray), Benth. Fl. Austr. i. 106. The 

 specimens are perfectly glabrous, except a very slight pubescence on the branches 

 of the panicle and pedicels. Leaves palmately divided to within J or Jin. of the, 

 base, into 5 or 7 ovate-lanceolate or oblong-acuminate slightly toothed lobes, of 

 which the central largest ones are usually 2 to Sin. long, the 2 outermost short 

 and very acuminate. Panicles short and loose. Pedicels J to lin. long. Sepals 

 very unequal, glabrous except at the base, the edges very thin. Anthers about 

 IJ line long. Capsule obovoid-oblong, rarely Bin. long, truncate at the top, and 

 very much depressed in the centre. Seeds enveloped in a very deciduous wood, 



Hab.: Thursday and other islands off the N.E. coast, Bordekin Eiver, Port Denjson, 

 Used by the natives for fibre. — Roth, 



