MYRTACE^. 311 



America and has numerous flowers in ramified groups of cymes. 

 Myrcia, American like Pimenta, has all its essential characters ; but 

 the ovules, equally restricted in number (two in each cell), are 

 ascending instead of descending, and their seeds have large contor- 

 tuplicate cotyledons. In Ehodamnia, comprising shrubs of Asia and 

 tropical Oceania, the flowers, ordinarily tetramerous, are also those 

 of the Myrtles, and the ovules are numerous ; but the ovary has 

 only one cell ; so that these plants may be defined as Myrtles with 

 two parietal placentas. FenzKa, Australian shrubs, have also parietal 

 placentation, but ordinarily only in one cell, as the other generally 

 becomes more or less abortive, and on the placenta there are only 

 two, three, or four superposed ovules which, having become seeds, 

 are isolated each in a cellule formed by the false partitions of the 

 putamen (the fruit being drupaceous). Feijoa, a Brazilian shrub, 

 has also the fiowers of a Myrtle, with complete or incomplete and 

 multiovulate ovarian cells. But the staminal filaments, instead of 

 being at first incurved, are straight in the bud and lengthen rapidly 

 during anthesis ; the embryo is said to be surrounded by albumen. 



The genus Marlieria is also American, and its flowers are orga- 

 nized like those of the Myrtles, with the ovary of Myrcia, i.e. with 

 cells containing each two ascending ovules ; but it is distinguished 

 by the mode of insertion of the stamens and by the conformation of 

 the calyx. The floral receptacle, after lodging the ovary at the 

 bottom of its cavity, is prolonged in a hollow tube on which are 

 inserted by steps the pieces of the androecium. The perianth, 

 inserted on the margia of this tube, is formed of petals which may 

 be wanting and of a gamosepalous calyx quite closed and opening 

 only by tearing in the true Marlieria, or very shortly lobed and not 

 completely closed in those named Eugeniojpsis. Galyptranthes, trees 

 or shrubs from tropical America, have all the characters of the true 

 Marlieria, and are distinguished only by the mode in which the 

 calyx detaches itself circularly by its base and in a single piece, 

 like a hood. 



Gampomanesia has the calyx of Calyptrcmthes or rather of Mar- 

 lieria, for it tears deeply from top to bottom, and thus forms from four 

 to six unequal lobes. The ovary has from four to fen cells and is 

 surmounted by a style at summit stigmatiferous peltate or capitate. 

 In each cell the ovules are disposed in two or four vertical series. 

 The fruit encloses several seeds the embryo of which is spirally 



