GELASTRAOE^. 11 



Guyana, with leaves alternate, petiolate, entire, coriaceous, glabrous, 

 penninerved, reticulate, subtriplinerved at the base, accompanied by 

 two very small caducous stipules. Its flowers are inserted in the 

 axil of the leaves in (spurious) umbels supported by a small common 

 peduncle. 



lY. AZIMA SERIES. 



In this group, long considered as forming a special family under 

 the name of Salvadoracece, we may study first Asima ^ scandens (fig. 

 13-15), formerly described as type of the genus Actegeton? Its flowers 

 are ordinarily tetramerous and polygamo-dicecious. The calyx, gamo- 

 sepalous and valvate, is divided above into four lobes.^ The petals, 

 alternate, sessile, narrow and elongated, soon cease to touch at the 

 margins. In the intervals are inserted, on a narrow receptacle, four 

 stamens whose thick free filaments, in the male flower, are inserted 

 round a rudimentary gyneecium, and are each surmounted by a bilocu- 

 lar int.rorse anther dehiscing by two longitudinal clefts. It is sterile 

 in the female flowers in which the corolla and androecium are united 

 below in a very short tube, with a free superior gynaecium, consisting 



Auma [Actegeton) scandens. 



Pig. 13. Male flower, perianth Fig. U. Female flower. Fig. 15. Long. sect, of female 



removed (4). flower. 



of an ovary with two cells, surmounted by a short style, soon divided 

 into two large branches, stigmatiferous within and on the margins. 



1 Lms-Sut. i. 343 (1783) ; III. t. 807.— J. {Actegiton).—S. Bn. Adansonia, ix. 282, t. 10, 



Qm. 425.— A. DO. Prodr. xvii. I^.—Konetia fig. 1-3.— A. DC. loc. cit. 20. 



Lhbr. Stirp. 1, 1. 1.— Bndi.. O-m. m. 5711, 6891. » Equal or unequal, as if caused by the tear- 



— H. Bn. Admsonia, ix. 286, 289. ing of a monophyUons envelope. 



' Bl. Bijdr. 1143.— Enbl. Gen. n. 6693 



