E UPHORBIA OEM. 148 



inner angle of each cell are inserted two collateral, descendent ovules, 

 with, an exterior and superior micropyle, capped by a well-developed 

 obturator. This plant has simple, petiolate, alternate leaves, accom- 

 panied by two stipules, and flowers borne by small axillary branches, 

 whose bracts or alternate leaves have small cymes in their axUs. 

 The pedicels of the female flowers are less numerous, longer, thicker, 

 and more swpUen at their summit than those of the male. 



Savia consists of closely allied plants distinguished especially by a 

 trimerous gynseceum. Their flowers have five or a less number of 

 petals, and a disk with five or six lobes, sometimes petaloid. The 

 fruit is capsular, and the seeds contain, in a fleshy albumen, an embryo 

 with flat or slightly sinuous cotyledons. They are bushes from the 

 Antilles and eastern islands of Africa. We might, strictly, separate 

 Actephila, consisting of shrubs from the warmer regions of Asia and 

 Oceania, which, with the same floral organisation, have a more or 

 less cup-shaped receptacle, and seeds whose embryo destitute of 

 albumen, or only presenting between its folds a small quantity, have 

 involute-folded cotyledons, enveloping each other, and thus some- 

 times forming in the Australian species, where they are membranous, 

 a number of spiral turns. Discocarpus, from tropical America, is 

 analogous to these plants ; it has nearly the same flower, and cotyle- 

 dons which also envelop one another, but the seeds are provided 

 with a membranous aril. The sepals are imbricate or partly valvate; 

 the corolla and androceum are often incomplete, and the gyneeceum, 

 like that of Actephila, is usually surrounded by a variable number 

 of staminodes. This genus may be considered as the connection 

 between Actephila and Amanoa. These were formally reduced to 

 some American and African species, with a slightly concave recep- 

 tacle, on the edges of which are inserted a calyx and small, slightly 

 perigynous, petals; the sepals more or less imbricated, but with 

 thick edges, cut straight, and, in consequence, sometimes quite 

 valvate. The fruit was usually capsular, but often also more or less 

 fleshy at maturity, dehiscing incompletely or with difficulty. We 

 have attached to this group a large number of species from all the 

 warm countries of the old world, formerly referred to other genera, 

 and which differed from the foregoing, in having their calyx always 

 and completely valvate; the receptacle becomes hollower; the 

 perigynous nature of their petals and glands much more decided, 



