RHIZOPHORACEJE. 299 



Trees and shrubs ; leaves opposite, entire or dentelate, with inter- 

 petiolate stipules. — 5 genera. 



IV. Anisophylle^.^ — Receptacle concave and ovary inferior. 

 Styles distinct. Mowers polygamous. Seed exalbuminous, with 

 macropod embryo. Shrubs with alternate leaves or alternately large 

 and very small. Plowers in spikes or axillary clusters. — 1 genus. 



These fourteen genera comprise some fifty species, all of which, 

 except one BMzophora and two or three Gassipoureas, belong to the 

 old world. All the species of Grossostylis are Oceanic. Macarisia 

 is found only in Madagascar, and Dactylopetalum belongs exclusively 

 to that island and western tropical Africa. Weihea belongs to the 

 same regions except one species which inhabits Ceylon. Blephari- 

 stemma is Indian, as likewise Kandelia. Pellacalyx and Gynotroches 

 belong to Malaya. AnisopJiyllea has been observed in Asia and 

 tropical Oceania, in Madagascar and the west of tropical Africa ; 

 Barraldeia in Madagascar, Asia, and tropical Oceania. The genera 

 of the Mangrove series are formed of species all of which, except 

 BMzophora Mangle, grow abundantly on all the tropical maritime 

 shores of the old world. They are the most common and best known 

 among many plants of very different families growing with them and 

 in the same manner on flooded coasts, such as Avicennia, Mgiceras, 

 Gonocarpus, Lumnitzera, etc., which, sending down into the mud 

 their numerous long adventitious roots that support their stems, 

 constitute aquatic forests,^ often very dense, affording shelter to 

 crowds of marine animals, and considered in most tropical countries 

 as dangerous sources of miasmatic affections. 



These plants have manifold affinities ; on the one hand with certain 

 families with free gynsecium, as the Macarisioe, and on the other 

 hand with groups, as BMzophora, in which the ovary is inferior and 

 kdnate to the cavity of the receptacle. This is precisely the case 

 with the LoravthecB, Onagrarice, and Gornacece, to which they were 

 formerly referred or compared, but are distinguished : the first by 

 their simple perianth and the organization of their gynsecium ; the 

 last by a great number of traits, but chiefly that their ovules, when 

 they are descending and definite in number, have the micropyle 



1 AnisophyllecB B. H. Gen. 678. = "Regionem peculiarem formant." (Endl.) 



