ItUBIACE^. 



277 



Coffea arabica. 



Fig. 255. Trans. 

 sect, of fruit. 



Fig. 256. Trans. 



sect, of fruit, 



showing 



embrj-o. 



introrse anther,' with two narrow cells dehiscing within or near the 

 margin, enclosed or exserted. The gynsecium is composed of an 

 inferior ovary, ordinarily bilocular,^ surmounted by a thick epigynous 

 disk, and a style, enclosed or exserted, the extremity of which divides 

 into two narrow branches, straight or recurved, charged internally 

 with stigmatic papillae. In the internal angle of each cell, at a 

 variable height, is inserted a peltate 

 ovule, incompletely anatropous, 

 with micropyle directed downwards 

 and outwards.' The fruit is an 

 oblong or spherical drupe, with 

 flesh more or less thick, enclosing 

 one or two putamens, thin and 

 parchment-like, or thicker and re- 

 sisting, externally convex and flat 

 within if two iu number. There a 

 more or less deep vertical furrow presents itself which is seen repro- 

 duced on the internal face of the seed. The latter has, under a thin 

 coat, a homy albumen, more or less involute at the margin, and an 

 eccentric dorsal embryo near the base of the albumen (flg. 256). 

 The cotyledons are foliaceous, elliptical or cordate, and the radicle, 

 rather long, is inferior. The Cofiee plants are shrubs of tropical 

 Asia and Africa, with opposite or ternate leaves, accompanied by 

 uiterpetiolar, or oftener intrapetiolar stipules, connate in a sheath to 

 a variable extent and generally acuminate.* The flowers ' are united 

 in the axil of the leaves in contracted compound cymes, with pedicels 

 rarely a little developed, accompanied with bracts and bracteoles, 

 often connate, ordinarily covered, like the young leaves and the 

 stipules which they resemble, with a waxy or sticky and resinous 

 substance. 



From the Coffees has been distinguished generically Lachnostoma,^ 

 a shrub of Sumatra, having the corolla charged with abundant hairs 

 in the throat, ordinarily four-lobed, a style with slender branches, an 



' The connective is curved in C. arabica, and 

 the summit of the filament is inserted on its 

 tack, hut remaining rigid ; so that the anther 

 does not become oscillating. 



2 It is sometimes trilocular. 



? Covered with a thick placentary obturator. 



* In the Ulterior are found soft papillEO, or 



glandular sticks, which secrete an abundant 

 waxy substance, as around the buds. 



* Ilather large, white, odorous. 



6 KoKlH. Ned. Kruidk. Arch. ii. 202 {Laeh- 

 nastoma).—B.'B. Gen. ii. 114, 1129, n. 237 (not 

 H.B.K.). 



