94 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
pyles upwards and outwards. The bivalve pod is elongated com- 
pressed coriaceous and woody, with the placentary suture thickened 
and dilated. The seeds, varying in number, which it encloses, con- 
tain within their coats a fleshy exalbuminous embryo. 4. zobilis,' 
the only species of this genus, comes from 
Martaban. Its unarmed branches are 
covered with alternate paripinnate leaves, 
accompanied by narrow caducous folia- 
ceous stipules, and its flowers are collected 
into long lax pendulous terminal racemes. 
Hach floral pedicel is axillary to a ca- 
ducous bract, and bears below the flower 
two large red lateral bracts, which are at 
first valvate and form a sort of sheath 
around the flower-bud, finally separating 
to free the flower, on either side of which 
they persist. 
The flowers of Humboldtia? though 
much smaller than those of Amherstia, 
resemble them except in one point: their stamens are free 
instead of being diadelphous. In certain Asiatic species of this 
genus the oppositipetalous stamens are reduced to short sterile 
tongues, or even disappear altogether. The four or five species of 
this genus are natives of the west of tropical Africa,’ India, and 
Ceylon.‘ They are unarmed shrubs with paripinnate leaves and 
flowers in solitary or geminate racemes, which are terminal or in- 
serted on the wood of the old branches. These flowers also are 
accompanied by two coloured lateral bractlets which touch by their 
edgesjand envelope the flower-bud. 
Schotia’ has altogether the flower of Humboldtia, with the four 
sepals and five petals similarly imbricated, the ten free or nearly free 
Amherstia nobilis, 
Fie. 67. 
Diagram. 
1 Watt, loc. cit—Watp,, Rep., v. 567.— 
Hook., in Bot. Mag., t. 4453. 
2 Van, Symb. Bot., iii. 106.—DC., Prodr., 
ji. 488.—Enpu., Gen., n. 6792.—B. H., Gen., 
579, 1003, n. 341.—Batschia VauL., op. cit., 
39, t. 56 (nec GMEL., nec L., nec THUNB.). 
3 The flowers of the African species, which we 
shall call H. africana, have ten fertile stamens, 
whose filaments are united for a very short dis- 
tance at the base, and are inflexed in the bud. 
The ovary usually contains four descending 
ovules in two rows. The base of each ovule is 
more or Jess completely surrounded by a projec- 
tion of the placenta, and its micropyle looks 
upwards and outwards. Near the bottom of the 
floral receptacle is 4 gland projecting into its 
cavity. . 
‘BR. Br. in Wall. Pl. As. Rar., iii. 17, t. 
238.—Wieut & ARN., Prodr., i. 284.—Wiaut, 
Icon., t. 1605-1608.—Watp., Rep., i. 844; Ann., 
iii. 852; iv. 608. 
5 Jacg., Collect., i. 98.—Lamx., Dict., vii. 
