TJBREBINTHACE^. 



3^5 



AncuiarAium, occidentale. 



oontaiuing pollen. The ovule is the same as that of the Mango at the 

 base, though finally the funicle supporting it is inserted a little 

 higher. The fruit (fig. 334) becomes dry, indehiscent and campyli- 

 tropous ; it contains a large reniform seed, and its peduncle, at first 

 narrow and cyliadrical, rather hard, finally becomes hypertrophous 

 thick presenting the appearance of a . 

 piriform berry. Anacardium con- 

 sists of trees from tropical America. 

 In Semecarpus, an Asiatic tree 

 with simple leaves, the dry fruit 

 is also supported by a thick fleshy 

 base, formed by the hypertrophy 

 of th.e receptacle, which is more 

 or less concave, so that, like the 

 perianth, the five stamens are in 

 this genus hypogynous or peri- 

 gynous to various degrees, and the 

 ovary surmounted by three style 

 branches. In Nothopegia^ a tree 

 from the mountains of India, the 

 flowers are tetramerous, with 

 double imbricate perianth, and 

 four stamens inserted on the edge 

 of the disc ; but the ovary is sur- 

 mounted by a short simple style, 

 and contains a nearly apiculate, 

 descendent ovule. The fruit is a 

 depressed apiculate drupe. The 

 leaves are simple and alternate, 

 and the flowers arranged in com- 

 pound clusters, but slightly ramified. 



Campnosperma has the same general organisation as the preceding 

 genera, with three to four partite flowers, an imbricate corolla and 

 a diplostemonous androceum. The ovule is descendent, with superior 

 micropyle. But its fruit presents this peculiarity that it is divided 

 by a false descendent partition into two unequal compartments. Cam- 

 pnosperma consists of trees with alternate and simple leaves. The 

 inflorescence often has the priacipal axis unramifled. These plants 

 have been observed in tropical Asia, Madagascar, and even in Brazil, if 



Fig. 324. Longitudinal section of 

 fruit. 



