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GYEOCARPUS JACQUINI. (Nat. order CombretaceBe.) 



wYKOCARPUS. Jaca. — GEN. CHAR. Calyx tube adnate to the ovary, or none in male flowers, limb 4 to 7 cleft. Petals none. Stamens 

 4 to 6, alternating with as many club shaped staminodia, or fewer or none in the female flowers. Ovary inferior, with 1 pendulous ovule and a sessile 

 stigma, abortive in the male flowers. Drupe dry, crowned by 2 much elongated, erect, spathulate, wing like calyx lobes. Seed obloug, pendulous, with- 

 out albumen, cotyledons petiolate, convolute round the radicle. A tree. Leaves alternate, broad, entire or lobed. Flowers polygamous, very small, crowded 

 in dense corymbose cymes. 



A genus consisting of a single species, a tree widely distributed in the tropical regions of Asia, Central America and Australia, it is of anomalous 

 structure and has been associated by many botanists with Laurinese chiefly ou account of its anthers opening by 2 valves. Prof. Lindley first placed it in 

 this order, with which its fruit and seed quite agree. , X /'vjS'vV/ > (l*. <Pt*fc~\f> SL 



CxYKOCAlirUS JaCQUINI. (Roxb.) A tree often of large size. Leaves deciduous, crowded at the ends of the thick 

 branchletS; broadly ovate or orbicular, on young trees often 8 to 10 inches long and broad and deeply 3 lobed, on older trees usually 

 smaller and entire or broadly and shortly lobed, usually more or less acuminate, truncate or cordate at the base, glabrous or tomentose 

 underneath or ou both sides, the petioles varying from 1 to 4 inches. Peduncles in the upper axils or close above the last leaves 

 rarely exceeding the petioles, bearing each a repeatedly branched cyme with densely crowded exceedingly small flowers forming little 

 globular heads before expanding, sometimes entirely males, sometimes with a few hermaphrodite or female flowers scattered in the 

 cyme or chiefly in the forks. Drupes ovoid, usually about f inch long, the wings er^jt, oblanceolate, rounded at the end, much nar- 

 rowed below the middle, from under 2 inches long and about | inch broad to 2| incfces long and about 5 lines broad. Pas. Syn. i. 

 143. G. Americauus, Jacq. Meissn. in DC. Prod. xv. 247. G. Asiaticus, Willd. ;■ — Meissn. I. c. 248. G. acumiuatus, Meissn. I. c. 

 G. spheuopterus, R. B>; Endl. Iconogr, t. 43 ; — Meissn. I- c, G. rugosus, R. Br. Meissn. 1. c. ; — Benth. Fl. Aust. 11, p. 505. 



This tree is common throughout the plains in India and Ceylon, and is loidely distributed in tropical regions throughout the toorld ; it 

 is called Tanaku and Kumar pulki in TeHgu, and Zaitan in Hindusianii, the loood is very light, soft, and white, and is much used at Condapilly 

 in thi Northern Circars for making light cavaclie boxes and toys, and it takes paint and varnish wel', it is also preferred before all other woods 

 for making catamarans ; necklaces and rosaries are made from the seed. The plate only represents male flowers and a fruit, as I unfortunately 

 have no fertile flowers at hand. 



A male (lower, showing the imbricate calyx and the 6 exseited stamens. 



Analysis. , 



r, showing the imbricate calyx and the < 

 en, showing the 6 stamens alternate wit 



3. A staminode. 



4. An anther, front and side view, showing that it opens by a valve (as in Lauraceao.) 



5. A fruit, showing its 2 loug wings (enlarged lobes of the calyx.) 



f 



The same open, showing the 6 stamens alternate with 6 spathulate staminodes. 



t 





196 



