54 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



completely, or even disappear altogether.^ The fruit is a drupe of 

 which, the mesocarp is frequently thin, and the stone hard and bony, 

 with its walls often containing resiniferous hollows, and with one or 

 more mono- or dispermous cells. The seeds contain under their thin 

 coats a fleshy albumen, sometimes of granular appearance, sur- 

 rounding an axUe embryo with elliptical cotyledons and superior 

 cylindrical radicle more or less long. 



Sovmirl 



Fig. 96. Flower (|). Fig. 97. Long. sect, of flower. 



Thus comprised, the genus Houmiri, divided (principally according 

 to the number of the stamens) into five sections,^ which might 

 possibly be considered as distinct genera, contains some twenty 

 species ^ which except one belong to tropical America. All are 

 woody and generally glabrous and balsamic. They have alternate 

 simple leaves,* entire or crenulate, coriaceous, and exstipulate, 

 flowers of whitish colour, disposed in the axils of the leaves at 

 the summit of the branches in ramifled or corymbiform cymes, 

 sometimes nniparous towards the apex. 



This small family, distinguished in 1819 by A. P. de CandoUe,* 

 according to him contained only Linum and Eadtola, considered 

 formerly by A. L. de Jussieu,® as '■^genera Caryophylleis affiniaP 

 The Hugonias^ ranged by the latter '^ among the Mahacece, and by 

 most authors of this century after the Chlcenacece^ took finally a 



' They have a double coat. 



2 HOUMIRI 



sect. 5. 



1. Aubrya (H. Bn). 



2. Saccoglottis (Makt.). 



3. Sumirium^.^TS.necAUor.'). 



4. Vaiitaneoides (Rich.). 



5. Vantanea Atibl.). 



3 Mast. Ifov. &m. et Spec. ii. 142, t. 198 ; 146 

 (^Saccoglottis), 147 {Selleria). — A. Jtjss. in A. S. 

 S. Fl. Bras. Mer. ii. 88, 90 (Be^fecja).— Walp. 



Aim. iv. 583, 685 [Saccoglottis). 



■• In vernation often involute. 



s TUor Mem. ed. 1, 217 ; Prodr. i. 423, Ord. 

 23. — LinacetB Lindl. Introd. ed 2, 89; 7eg. 

 Kingd. 485, Ord. 183. 



" Gen. (1789), 303. 



' Op. at. 275. 



8 DC. Prodr. i. 522.— Endl. Gen. 1016.— 

 LiNDi. Veg. Kingd. 489 (Oxalid.). 



