BALSAMODENDRON BERRYI. (Nat. ord. BureeracesB.) 



BaLSAMODENDRON, Kwnth.— GEN. CHAR. Flowers polygamous. Calyx tubular 4 toothed persistent, petals 3-4 erect recurved towards 

 the apex with incurved tips, linear-oblong, the sides slightly imbricate and tips incurved in aestivation, stamens 6-8 inserted outside the margin of the 

 very short 6-8 erenated disk, free, alternately shorter, ovary surrounded by the disk sessile 2-3 celled, narrowed into alongish style, stigma obtuse 4 lobed. 

 ovules 2 in each cell, collateral pendulous, in the male flowers the ovaries are abortive very small or sometimes wanting. Drupe ovoid or subglobose, 

 epicarp 2-4 valved, with 1-3 bony 1 seeded pyrenes, seeds exalbuminous, testa membranaceous, cotyledons contortuplicate sheathing the terete pointed 

 superior radicle. Trees or shrubs yielding resin, generally spinose, leaves alternate 1-3 foliate or unequally-pinnate, flowers small fascicled on thickened 

 nodes or short lateral ramuli or on 1-4 flowered axillary jointed peduncles. Kunth. in Ann. Sc. Nat. ii. 348. Heudelotia, A.Rich. Fl. Seneg. 150. I. 39. 

 Commiphora, Jacq. Hort. Schcenb. t. 294. Balsam ophleos, 0. Berg, in Bol. Zeit. 



BaLSAMODENDRON BeRRYI. (Amt.) A small or middling sized very thorny tree up to 3-4 feet in girth with nu- 

 merous lateral spinose ramuli nearly at right angles with the branches, leaves more or less fascicled at the extremities or from nodes 

 on the branches or thorn-like ramuli, trifoliate 1-1^ inches long, common petiole J an inch long channelled slightly puberulous, leaflets 

 sessile or subsessile at the apex of the petiole cuneate obovate, the terminal one twice as large as the lateral ones, glabrous on both 

 sides from entire or slightly undulate to more or less crenate particularly towards the apex, flowers very small (about 3 lines long) 

 fascicled on nodes on the branches and thorn-like ramuli sessile or subsessile, calyx tubular 3-4 cleft at the apex, corol twice or nearly 

 twice as long as the calyx 3-4 petaled, petals slightly imbricate at the sides with inflexed tips during aestivation, erect in expansion 

 with a recurved apex which terminates in an incurved tip, disk very small (generally rather larger in the male flowers than in the 

 fertile) 6-8 erenated, the crenatures resembling glands, stamens 6-8 alternately shorter, in the male all are very much longer than the 

 calyx and the 3-4 longer ones equal the corol, the anthers of the longer are rounded or subapiculate, and prominently apiculate on the 

 shorter, in the fertile flowers the 3-4 longer ones equal the teeth of the calyx and the others the sinuses only, the anthers are smaller, 

 (and effete ?) ovary large in the fertile flowers attenuated into a rather long style with a 4 lobed stigma, very small (or wanting) in the 

 male flowers, stigma 4 lobed, fruit as in the genus oblong sometimes obtusely angled 6-8 lines long apiculate. Arnot Ann. of Nat.. 

 Hist. vol. iii. p. 85, 86 ;— Wight, 111. p. 185. Protium Gileadense, WA. Prod. 176. (exc. syn.) Amyris Qileadensis, Roxb. Fl. Ind. 

 ii. p. 246 (exc. syn.) ^U . A-wt~. <&*_/ . J , ^'' C j 



This is a good sited tree in the dry jungles to the east of the Ndgiris (Guzzlehatiy pass, &c.) covered with flower and fruit in Febru- 

 ary and March, all over the Presidency ii is very common as a hedge plant but seldom flowering in that state, as the inflorescence is either at- 

 tacked when young by some insect Or rendered abortive from a successive propagation from cuttings. The whole tree has a grateful fragrance and 

 a gum-resin exudes from it, the plant makes an admirable hedge. 



I have taken the generic character entirely from the Indian plant, the drawing is from fresh specimens collected in the Coimbatore 

 district. 



126 



