258 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



less dilated at its stigmatiferous apex. In the interior angle of 

 each ovary cavity is a placenta supporting two descendent ovules, 

 one being often abortive, the micropyle originally directed up- 

 wards and outwards.^ Thie fruit is a drupe whose three, four, or 

 five parts are completely joined together or independent in the upper 



Spondias lutea. 



I 

 Fig. 260. Flower (f). Fig. 261. Longitudinal section of flower. 



part. The stone, with thick stony monospermous cells, vertical or 

 divergent, smooth outwardly, or sometimes prickly with exterior 

 prominencies, and hollowed out above by oblique channels, is covered 

 by a more or less abundant mesocarp. The seeds enclose, under 

 their thin coats, a fleshy exalbuminous embryo, with thick, plano- 

 convex cotyledons and a short superior radicle. 



In certain species of Spondia, as S. pleiogyna^ the number of ovary 

 cells may amount to fifteen. In others, there are generally only 

 two or three ; this is the case in Poupartia,^ consisting of plants from 

 eastern tropical Africa, principally insular, often considered as a 

 distinct genus, the prefloration of whose corolla is generally much 

 more distinctly imbricate. Ten species* of Spondias are known 

 growing in all the tropical regions of the globe, and several 

 are frequently cultivated in warm countries. These are trees, 

 with alternate leaves, near together towards the summit of the 

 branches, compound-imparipinnate, with opposite folioles. Their 



1 With double coat. ShaJcua Boj. Hoi-t. Maur. 82. 



^ F. MuELL. Fragm. iv. 78. * Wight et Aen. Prodr. i. 172, 173 {Cytliee- 



3 CoMMERS. ex J. Qen. 372. — PoiE. Biet. v. red). — Guillem. in Ann. So. Nat. b&. 2, vii. 



606.— K. in Ann. Sc. Nat. s&. 1, ii. 364.— DC. 362.— Bi. Mus. Lugd.-Bat. 233, t. 41 {Ema).— 



Prodr. ii. 75. — Endl. Gen. n. 5921.— Makch. Ouy.Fl. Trop.Afr.i.i:i1.—'S^^Tis..m.Amtral. 



Anacard. 27, 169. — Lanneoma Del. in A/nn. Sc. i. 491. — Walp. Sep. i. 566 ; v. 418 ; Ann. ii. 



Nat. 8&. 2, XX. 91, t. 1, fig. 2.— Walp. Pep. 287 ; vi. 648. 



v. 413 ; Ann. iii. 483.— B. H. Gen. 428. n. 42.— 



