106 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
and shrubs; there are six species,’ all from tropical America and 
especially Guiana. The alternate pari- or imparipinnate leaves 
possess few coriaceous leaflets, and either short and narrow or large 
leafy caducous stipules. The flowers form short racemes, often grouped 
on a common terminal axis; this may be short and erect, or slender 
elongated and pendulous. Lach flower is axillary to a bract and is 
accompanied by two caducous lateral bractlets. 
The flowers of 4/zelia® resemble those of Berlinia, but their lateral 
bractlets, ill-developed as in Daniella, do not cover them completely 
in the bud. 4. bracteata, for instance, has a tubular receptacle bearing 
on its edges a calyx of four sepals, two lateral and two respectively 
anterior and posterior, by which the former are overlapped. The 
corolla is only represented by the large posterior petal, and the an- 
droceum consists of nine stamens. Of 
Afzelia bracteata. these five are superposed to the sepals 
and four alternate with them; it is the 
one which should be superposed to the 
large single petal which is absent, while 
the stamen on either side of this is re- 
duced to a sterile tongue. Hence we 
find (fig. 83), going from before backwards, 
one large stamen, two smaller, two large 
ones, two small again, and finally two 
staminodes ; next to these is inserted the 
gyneceum, towards the posterior edge of 
Pos BA, the receptacular cavity (R). It consists 
Diagram. of a multiovulate ovary, surmounted by 
a style which is rolled up in the bud 
and ends in a little stigmatiferous head. The fruit is a thick flattened 
elongated pod, divided by transverse false dissepiments into as many 
chambers as there are seeds. Each of these last has a coloured aril 
forming a deep cupule at its base. 4. bracteata is a tree from the 
west of tropical Africa. The flowers of A. africana, which comes from 
the same parts, lack the posterior staminodes. In 4. madagascariensis, 
1 K., Zwei Abhandl., 15, t. 8, fig.4.—WaLp., sonia, vi. 183.—B. H., Gen., 580, n. 347 (nec 
Ann, ii. 447. EuRH., nec GMEL.).— ?? Pancovia W., Spec., 
2 SMm., in Trans, Linn, Soc., iv. 221—DC., ii. 540 (ex Sm., in Rees Cyclop., v. 26).—Pan- 
Prodr., ii. 507.—Envu., Gen., n. 6796.—Hoox. —covia really belongs to Sapindacee (H. By., 
F., Niger, 325, t. 34, 35.—H. By., in Adan- Adansonia, ix. 229). 
