102 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
this genus. Thus the floral receptacle is often long and tubular like 
that of the Tamarind, as in /” difolia AvBL. (figs.77,78). But elsewhere 
we find it deeper and shallower in proportion, like that of Baikiaa, 
as seen in V. macrophylla’ (figs. 79, 80); and the gyneceum is in this 
case inserted much further from the posterior rim of the receptacular 
cavity. The calyx usually consists of four imbricate sepals, and the 
corolla is represented by the vexillary petal, which is greatly de- 
veloped and possesses a long claw and a broad limb which is bent on 
itself in the bud. The four anterior petals are either reduced to very 
little scales or altogether absent. There are often three fertile 
Vouapa bifolia. 
Fra. 78. 
Flower (4). Longitudinal section of flower. 
stamens, the other pieces of the androceum becoming quite rudi- 
mentary or even disappearing (figs. 77, 78). But in Authonota, from 
tropical Africa, which should be referred to this genus, there are 
sometimes as many as nine or ten stamens, all of which may be 
fertile but one; and this reveals more clearly the fundamental ar- 
rangement of the elements of the androceum. Thus V/. macrophylla 
has five very unequal petals, and it is the stamen superposed to the 
vexillary petal which is absent or reduced to a sterile tubercle. The 
nine others have “an anther which may dehisce longitudinally and 
1H. By., in Adansonia, vi. 178, t. iii. fig. 6, are inexact and imperfect).—Macrolobium Pa- 
47.—Anthonota macrophylla P. BEauv., Fl. Ow. lisoti BENTH., in Trans. Linn. Soe., xxv. 8308.— 
et Ben. i, 71, t. 42 (the analyses of the flower Ouiv., Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 297. 
