RRIZOPHOEACEM. 297 



stamens, or even disappear altogether. In the internal angle of eacli 

 ovarian cell, there is a descending anatropous ovule with micropyle 

 superior and exterior. The fruit, surmounted by the calyx or its 

 scar, is oblong, slightly fleshy or coriaceous, with smooth surface, or 

 traversed by longitudinal ribs,' and encloses a descending seed, the 

 coats of which cover a fleshy macropodal embryo, with a superior 

 radicle, in the form of a thick club and with a gemmule formed of a 

 goodly number of small leaves in two vertical series. Anisophyllea, 

 of which seven or eight species^ are known, consists of trees or 

 shrubs mostly from the tropical regions of the old world ; they have 

 been observed in India, Malaya, Madagascar, and tropical western 

 Africa. The leaves are alternate, distichous, without stipules, 

 alternately small and reduced to stipuliform tongues, and large, oval 

 or lanceolate, sometimes oblique at the base (giving them the form 

 of a parallelogram or trapezium), entire, coriaceous, in dried speci- 

 mens often presenting a yellow tinge, penainerved and regularly or 

 irregularly 3-7-nerved at the base. The flowers are axillary (fig. 

 275), small and disposed in simple spikes, with or without bracteoles. 



The different groups united in this small family should have been 

 placed far from each other, and they have been, in fact, when the 

 principles of A. L. db Jtjssieu have been strictly applied. The 

 GassipaurecB known were, clearly, plants evidently epigynous, 

 while the true BMzophorece and Oarallia had an ovary in great 

 part inferior, with perigynous or epigynous stamens. It was E. 

 Beown,^ who, in 1814, gave the name of Bhisophora to a distinct 

 family,* before him referred to the Gaprifoliem. In 1846 Lindlet^ 

 placed the Gassipourece after the Loganiacece-, although he was 

 not ignorant of their aflSnities with the Mangroves pointed out 

 by R. Beown. Anisophyllea, on the other hand, has been considered 

 a neighbour of the 8axifragacece. Endlicher/ nevertheless, in 1840, 



' In Comiretocarpus Mothyi Hook. j.'. [Gen. [Tetracrypta] ; Enttm. Tl. Zeyl. 119. — Oliv. M. 



683, II. 17), a small tree of Borneo, these rilia are Trap. Afr. ii. 412. — H. Bn. Adansmia, xi. 310. 



more prominent and developed into three or four — Walp. Ann. ii. 630 [Anisophyllum). 



Tertical ■wings, at the same time the staminal ^ Flind. Voy, ii. 549 ; Congo, 437. 



filaments are narrower than in Anisophyllea * Already in 1796, Satigny {Lamlc. Diet. iv. 



from which Comhretocarpus is not perhaps gene- 696) had formed a distinct family under the' 



rically distinct. name of Paletuv iers. 



' Jack, Mai. Mhc. ; Calc. Journ. iv. 336 * Veg. Kingd. 604. 



(Saforff^js).— MiQ. Fl. Ind.-Bat. i. p. i. 696 « Gen. 1186 {Legnotidea). 

 (Anisophyllwn). — Thw. Hook. Jowrn. v. 378, t. 5 



