684 PHANEROGAMIA. 



dilated and tumid at the insertion, the scar left by its fall 3 lines or 

 more in diameter. Stipules none. Leaf-buds naked. Inflorescence 

 terminal, forming a nearly sessile and crowded compound cyme, its 

 lower primary divisions subtended by rather large foliaceous bracts, 

 the larger about an inch in length, and resembling the leaves, but 

 mostly sessile. Pedicels from one to 3 lines long. Bractlets minute 

 and caducous. Flowers polygamo-dicecious. Male flowers. — Flower- 

 buds between 2 and 3 lines in diameter, globular. Calyx five-parted; 

 its divisions triangular or triangular-lanceolate, acute, equal, distant 

 in aestivation in the full-grown flower-bud, much smaller than the 

 petals, and about half their length. Petals 5, distinct, ovate or 

 oblong, thickish, glabrous or nearly so, apparently greenish-white, 

 about 3 lines long and widely spreading when expanded, inserted by 

 a broad base into the base of the calyx, valvate in aestivation, and 

 with a conspicuous inflexed acumination. Stamens 10, inserted with 

 the petals, nearly equal : filaments about the length of the corolla, 

 subulate, rather stout, dilated at the base, distinct : anthers ovate or 

 subcordate, two-celled, fixed by the base, somewhat introrse; the 

 cells opening longitudinally. Pollen-grains simple, globular, smooth. 

 Ovary ovoid or globose-ovate, free from the calyx except its very 

 base, contracted at the apex into a very short and thick style, which 

 is terminated by a depressed, undivided, apparently imperfect stigma; 

 within five-celled; the thick and spongy placentae meeting but scarcely 

 coalescing in the centre, and bearing on their posterior faces numerous 

 minute rudiments of ovules, a few of which are more or less deve- 

 loped, but apparently sterile. Female flowers seen only in a fructified 

 state. Calyx-tube ovoid, connate with the ovary nearly or quite to 

 its summit ; the limb divided into 5 oblong superior teeth of about a 

 line in length and persistent. Within and alternating with these 

 teeth are 5 shorter, but otherwise nearly similar, thickish, equally 

 persistent, scale-like lobes, which evidently answer to the petals: 

 whether they were more developed in anthesis is doubtful : they seem 

 to be complete. No vestiges of stamens or marks of their insertion are 

 to be found. Style conspicuous, in the fruit somewhat exceeding the 

 calyx-teeth, a line and a half long, columnar, terminated by a large, 

 obtusely and radiately five-lobed stigma. Fruit fleshy or baccate, 

 glabrous, smooth, globular, 3 lines in diameter (its colour not re- 

 corded), conspicuously pointed with the persistent style and stigma, 

 and crowned with the teeth of the calyx and the alternate petals or 



