SIMARUBACEiE. 357 



straight, about 20 pairs, decurrent into an indistinct and waved 

 intramarginal vein. Stipules none. Peduncles axillary, bearing a 

 several-flowered, small, and racemose panicle, shorter than the petiole. 

 Flowers either monoecious or dioecious (from the state of the specimens 

 it is impossible to ascertain which), very small, about a line and a 

 half long, on short pedicels. Bracts subulate, minute. Male flowers 

 (known only from the analyses on the plate, made under Mr. Kich's 

 superintendence) . Calyx of 6 ovate sepals. Petals wanting. Stamens 

 6, opposite the sepals : anthers subsessile, ovoid-didymous, two-celled, 

 probably introrse; the cells opening longitudinally. Dish fleshy, 

 large, deeply three-cleft; the segments two-lobed, obtuse. No rudi- 

 ments of a pistil. Female flowers. Sepals 4 or 5, oblong-ovate, 

 minute, in anthesis much shorter than the pistil, erect, persistent, 

 furnished with a small globular gland at the base on the inside. 

 Petals 4 or 5, hypogynous, narrowly linear, caHnate, at length reflexed- 

 spreading, a line or a line and a half long, deciduous or marcescent. 

 Rudiments of stamens 8 or 10, opposite and alternate with the petals, 

 hypogynous, corresponding with the crenate sinuses of the disk, 

 which they slightly exceed in length, minute, thickened above, but 

 not antheriferous. Dish very thick and fleshy, somewhat saucer- 

 shaped, the edge 8-10-crenafe, or 4-5-lobed, with the lobes emarginate. 

 Ovary simple, sessile in the disk, longer than the petals, fleshy, ovoid, 

 scarcely at all compressed, one-celled, one-ovuled, its apex covered by 

 the very large and fleshy, depressed, hidney -shaped, sessile stigma. 

 Ovule borne on one side of the cell below its summit, between amphi- 

 tropous and anatropous ; the micropyle superior. Fruit a dry drupe 

 or nut, ovoid, slightly compressed, scarcely margined, an inch in length, 

 slightly pointed, indehiscent; the epicarp thin and crustaceo-coria- 

 ceous, smooth ; the putamen bony. Seed filling the cell, amphitropous, 

 oval, with a membranaceous testa, destitute of albumen. Embryo con- 

 formed to the seed : cotyledons oval, flat, rather fleshy : radicle very 

 short, partly included, superior. 



The drupe and the wood are very bitter, perhaps as much so in 

 Soulamea, which was named by Rumphius, from this quality, Rex 

 Amaroris. In allusion both to this sensible property, and to the 

 Rumphian name of its nearest ally, I have chosen the name of the 

 genus, from amaror, bitterness. For our plant is evidently gene- 

 rically distinct from Soulamea, as well by its 4-6-merous (instead of 



90 



