POLYQALACEJE. 



77 



leaves^ are alternate, coriaceous, glabrous, often entire; and the flowers 

 disposed in axillary, super-axillary or terminal racemes, simple or 

 ramified and more or less compound. Some seven or eight species 

 are known.^ 



III. KKAMEKIA SEEIES. 



The flowers of Krameria ^ (flg. 113-123) differ from those of all 

 other genera in this family, as they are resupinate ; they are more- 

 over hermaphrodite and irregular. The convex receptacle bears a 

 calyx having sometimes five sepals (fig. 122); they are imbricated 

 in a rather varied way, but one of them, the anterior, always 

 envelopes the two lateral, while of the two posterior one is generally 

 enveloped while the other envelopes. But generally there are but 

 four sepals, the anterior still enveloping and the posterior covering 

 the two lateral; thus it is the fifth, being interior, which dis- 

 appears. The corolla is only represented on the posterior side of the 

 flower, sometimes by three petals, the middle one covered in the bud 

 by the two lateral (fig, 119-122), sometimes by two leaves only. 

 They are nearly free or united by a common support of variable 



6, fig. a ; — Cryptostemon W. Spec. ii. 106 ; — 

 Moutabea Pcepp. et Endl. Nov. Gen. et Spec. ii. 

 62, t. 168), whose pentamerous flowers have 

 but slightly uneq^ual imbricated sepals and 

 petals with the androceum of the Folygalem, 

 formed of a tube cleft behind the upper oblique 

 openipg supporting eight biloculai introrse 

 anthers, dehiscing by a short oblique cleft into 

 two unequal valves. But all parts of the 

 perianth and androceum are supported by a 

 long common tube of uncertain nature, at the 

 bottom of which is a free ovary, with from 2 to 

 5 cells, surmounted by a slender flattened style 

 Irregularly dilated, stigmatiferous at the apex. 

 In the inner angle of each cell is a descendent 

 incompletely anatropoua ovule, with exterior 

 and superior micropyle. The globular and 

 fleshy fruit, analogous to that of Xmithophyllum, 

 contains one or more seeds lodged in pulp, 

 whose thin coats cover a large fleshy embryo, 

 with plano-convex cotyledons transversely 

 oblong, a short but little prominent ra- 

 dicle, and a gemmula with numerous leaves, 



corresponding to the middle of one of the large 

 edges of the cotyledons. Moutabea, of which 

 flve species are described, all from tropical 

 America, consists of glabrous trees, with 

 alternate, simple, elongated thick coriaceous 

 leaves (yellowish when dry) and with flowers 

 (white or yellow) in racemes or short spikes. 



1 They are generally of a yellowish tint. 



2 Nees, in Flora (1825), 120.— Wight et 

 Akn. Prodr. i. 39.— Thw. Enum. PL Zeyl. 23. 

 —Wight, 111. t. 23.— Mia. Fl Ind. Bat. i. p. 

 ii. 128 ; in Ann. Mus. tugd.-Bat. i. 271, 317.— 

 Hook. p. Fl. Brit. Ind. i. 208.— Walp. Sep. iv. 

 248 ; Ann. vii. 254. 



' LcEPL. It. 195. — L. &en. n. 161. — Adans. 

 Fam. des PL ii. 268.— J. Oen. 426; in Mem. 

 Mus. i. 390. Lamk, Diet. iii. 370 ; Suppl. iii. 

 226.— DO. Prodr. i. 341.— Spaoh, Suit. aBufon, 

 iii. 150.— EuDL. Oen. n. 5656. — A. Gray, Gen. 

 IlL t. 185, 186.— B. H. Gen. 140, n. 16.— 

 SciiNizL. Iconogr. t. 233.— 0. Bbkg, in Bot. 

 Zeit. (1856), 745. — H. Bn. in Adansonia, xi. 

 14, t. 3. 



