TREES AND SHRUBS. 



XIMENIA, L. 



Ximenia, Linnaeus, Gen. 361 (1737). — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 259. — Meissner, Gen. 45. — 



Endlicher, Gen. 1042. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 346. — Valeton, Crit. Overz. Olacin. 



72. — Baillon, Hist. PL xi. 450 (in part). — Engler & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iii. pt. i. 237. 

 Heymassoli, Aublet, Hist. PL Guian. 324 (1775). 

 Bottboelia, Scopoli, Introd. 233 (1777). 

 Pimecaria, Bafinesque, Alsograph. Am. 64 (1838). 



Trees and shrubs, with watery juices and terete armed or unarmed branchlets. Leaves alter- 

 nate, entire, subcoriaceous, often fascicled, persistent, short-petiolate, without stipules. Flowers 

 perfect, white, on slender pedicels in short axillary cymes or rarely solitary ; calyx small, four- 

 lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, persistent ; disk wanting ; petals four or five, hypogynous, 

 narrow, bearded on their inner face, revolute above the middle, valvate in the bud ; stamens twice 

 as many as the petals and inserted with them ; filaments free, filiform ; anthers linear, attached on 

 the back near the base, two-celled, the cells opening laterally, their connective apiculate at the 

 apex ; ovary four-celled below, only the apex one-celled, externally four-grooved, glandular at the 

 base, gradually narrowed into the slender style ; 1 stigma entire, subcapitate, ovules linear, solitary 

 in each cell, pendulous from the apex of the axile placenta, anatropous, raphe dorsal, micropyle 

 superior. Fruit drupaceous, ovoid or globose, one-celled ; exocarp thick and succulent, endocarp 

 crustaceous or subligneous ; seed filling the cavity of the endocarp, pendulous, surrounded by a 

 thin spongy coat; testa membranaceous; cotyledons elliptical; embryo minute, erect in the 

 apex of the copious fleshy albumen ; raphe terete. 



Four or five species of Ximenia inhabit tropical shores in the two hemispheres. The most 

 widely distributed of the species and the type of the genus, Ximenia americana, reaches southern 

 Florida; Ximenia ferox* occurs in Hayti ; Ximenia parvijlora 3 inhabits southern Mexico; 

 Ximenia coriacea* occurs in Brazil, and Ximenia caffra 5 in southern Africa. 



The genus is named for Francesco Ximenes, a Dominican priest, born at Luna in Aragon, who 

 lived for several years in Mexico, where in 1615 he published Qnatro libros de la naturaleza y 

 virtudes de las plantas y animates que estan recevidos en el uso medicina en la Nueva Espafia, 

 based on the collections and manuscripts of Francesco Hernandez, a Spanish physician sent by 

 Philip II to Mexico in 1571 to investigate the medical properties of the flora. 



c. s. s. 



i As pointed out by Beccari (Nuov. Giorn. Bot. Ital. ix. 278, t. 11), the ovary of Ximenia is formed of four carpels com- 

 pletely united externally but internally united from the base for little more than one half their length, so that in the upper part 

 the cavity is one-celled but in the lower part each carpel forms a cell. ' The style of Ximenia thus contains a cavity which is not 

 connected with the four cells below, or, if such a connection exists, it is by an exceedingly narrow aperture. 



* Poiret, Lamarck Diet. viii. 805 (1808). — Sprengel, Syst. ii. 217. — Valeton, Crit. Overz. Olacin. 77. —Urban, Syn. Fl. Ind. 

 Occ. v. 186. This is an obscure and little known plant, and possibly belongs to another genus. 



8 Bentham, PI. Hartweg. 7 (1839). — Hooker, Icon. iv. t. 350. — Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 185. — Valeton, Crit. Overz. 



* Engler, Martins Fl. Brasil. xii. pt. ii. 10, t. 2, f . 2 (1872). — Valeton, Crit. Ova 



* Sender, Linncca, xxiii. 21 (1850) ; Harvey & Sender, Fl. Cap. i. 235.- Vale 

 South African Phil. Soc. xviii. pt. ii. 137. 



