' DLAURACE A. 433 
Ravensara’ (figs. 247, 248) “has also the flower’ of Cryptocarya, 
with a receptacle that becomes thick and woody and closely sur- 
rounds the fruit, which it 
encloses completely. But this 
receptacle presents a most re- 
markable peculiarity. While 
the fruit is enlarging inside, 
six false septa, springing from 
the inner wall of the recepta- 
cular pouch,’ grow in towards 
the centre, where they finally 
unite. The pericarp, seed- 
coats, and even the embryo 
itself, penetrated and pushed 
from without inwards by these, are so deformed as to be divided 
into six lobes nearly all the way up. It is only at the apex that 
the septa do not unite,‘ thus leaving entire the part of the seed 
containing the tigellum, radicle, and attachment of the cotyledons. 
This genus consists of trees from Madagascar, with alternate leaves 
and inflorescences like those of Cryptocarya.’ ° 
Next to these come several other genera, which, with the flower 
of Cryptocarya, have around the fruit a thickened persistent recep- 
tacle, not septate, but distinguished by the details of the form of 
those parts of the perianth and pedicel that persist around the 
pericarp. These are Ampelodaphne, Aydendron, and Acrodiclidium. 
In the two last the valves covering the anther-cells are very 
small, and fall early; so that the dehiscence has been thought 
porricidal. 
The three genera Silvia, Endiandra (fig. 249), and Dictyodaphne 
Ravensara aromatica, 
Fra. 247, 
Fruit. 
Fig. 248. 
Transverse section of fruit. 
1Sonnzr., Voy. Ind. Or. (1782), ii. 101, 
t, 108, fig. 2.—PorR., Diet., vi. 81; Ill., t. 825. 
—H. By., in Adansonia, ix. 243.—Agatho- 
phyllum J., Gen. (1789), 431.—ScHREB., Gen., 
ed. 2, n, 1754,—NezEs, Syst., 192, 231.—EwDL., 
Gen., n. 2088.—Mutssy., Prodr., 109. 
2 The stamens are described as quadrilocellate 
by most authors, notably by MrissnzR. In the 
flowers that I have analysed, they had only two 
cells. 
3 Corresponding with the middle lines of the 
perianth-leaves. ' 
_ 4 They are here obliquely truncate downwards 
and inwards. The septa are also wanting below, 
VOL. II. 
for a very short distance corresponding with the 
insertion’ of the fruit on the base of the re- 
ceptacle. 
5 Of the three or four known species the most 
-famous is the Voaravendsara of Fiacourt 
(Hist. Madag. 125), the Ravensara, Ravin- 
dzara of the natives, or Madagascar Spice (Epice 
de Madagascar). This is R. aromatica Lamx. 
(Dict., vi. 81;—Pers., Syn., ii, 1;—Bvodia 
Ravensara GmeRtn., Fruct., ii. 101, t. 103 ;— 
Lamx.,, Zil., t. 404, 825 ;—Agathophyllum aro- 
maticum W., Spec. ii, 842;—Porr., Dict., 
Suppl., iv. 656 ;—Br., Mus. Lugd.-Bat., i. 339 ; 
—Muissn., Prodr., 110, n. 1). 
FF 
