152 



MEDICAL BOTANY. 



Order 20.— CLUSIACE^.— Lindley. 



Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual. Sepals 2 — 6, usually persistent, aestivation im- 

 bricated. Petals hypogynous, 4 — 10. Stamens numerous, distinct, or combined in one 

 or more parcels. Filaments unequal. Anthers adnate, introrse or extrorse. Torus 

 fleshy, sometimes 5-lobed. Ovary solitary, superior, 1 or many-celled. Ovules solitary, 

 erect. Style none or very short. Stigma peltate or radiate. Fruit dry or succulent, 1 or 

 many-celled, 1 or many-seeded, dehiscent or indehiscent. Seeds immersed in a pulp, 

 apterous, often with an arillus.* Testa thin and membranaceous, exalbuminous. Embryo 

 straight. 



The Clusiaceee consist of trees or shrubs, some of which are parasitical. 

 The leaves are exstipulate, opposite, very rarely alternate, coriaceous, entire, 

 with a strong midrib and numerous lateral veins. The flowers are generally 

 numerous, axillary, or terminal, and articulated with their peduncle. They 

 all abound in a viscid, yellow, acrid, and purgative gum-resinous juice, and 

 are natives of the tropics; the greatest number of South America and the 

 East Indies. Several of them afford edible fruits, more especially some of 

 the species of Garcinia. 



Hebradendron. — Graham. 

 Flowers unisexual. Males : sepals 4, persistent, membranaceous. Petals 4. Stamens 

 monadelphous. Filaments quadrangular. Anthers terminal, with an umbilicate, circum- 

 scissile operculum. Females unknown. Berry 4-celled, cells 1-seeded, crowned by a 

 sessile, lobed, muricated stigma. 



This genus was established by Dr. Graham (Comp. to Bot. Mag. ii. 199) 

 for a tree growing in the island of Ceylon, which furnishes some of the Gam- 

 boge of commerce. The name is founded on the peculiar dehiscence of the 

 anthers. The female flower not having been discovered, it cannot be classed 

 according to the sexual system ; but it is likely that it belongs to the same 

 class as Garcinia. 



H. cambogioides, Graham. — Male flowers in axillary fascicles. Sepals, when young, 

 sub-equal. Leaves obovate-elliptical, abruptly sub-acuminate. 



Graham, Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 199 ; Amer. Jour. Pharm. xiii. 19 ; Lind- 

 ley, Flor. Med. 113 ; Cambogia gutta, Linn. Zeylan. 87. 



Description. — A moderate-sized tree, with opposite, petiolate, obovate-elliptical, ab- 

 ruptly acuminate, coriaceous, 

 Fig. 85. smooth shining leaves, which 



are dark green above, and 

 paler beneath. The flowers 

 are unisexual. The males, 

 clustered in the axils of the 

 petioles, on short one-flowered 

 peduncles. The sepals are 

 four, imbricated, sub-equal, 

 concave, membranaceous ; 

 the outer sub-entire, the inner 

 denticulo-ciliate, yellow with- 

 in, yellowish-white external- 

 ly. The petals are also four, 

 spathulate-elliptical, crenu- 

 late, coriaceous, longer than 

 the calyx, deciduous, yellow- 

 ish-white, with a red tinge on 

 the inner base. The stamens 

 are monadelphous. The fila- 

 ments quadrangular, and 

 Berry. bearing terminal anthers, 

 which open by a circumscis- 



H. cambogioides. 

 1. Calyx. 2. Stamens. 3. Anthers. 4. Top of anther. 



