Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



261 



The female flowers open a short time after the male, are horizontal, 4 mm. 

 long when full grown but not yet open, broadly conical and apiculate; sepals 

 reniform, entire, smooth, slightly callous at their bases ; corolla four times as long 

 as the calyx, urceolate-campanulate when open, divided down to a little below the 

 middle into three triangular briefly acuminate, valvate divisions; the staminodes 

 form a cup, lining the undivided part of the corolla, and crowned by six obtuse 

 lobes of which three peep forth between the divisions of the corolla; the lobes, 

 which represent the filament, do not show usually any rudiment of the loges of 

 the anthers, though at times faint traces of these may be found. Ovary globose, 

 usually unicelled, with rudiments of the two other cells, more rarely with two of 

 these perfectly developed, producing then a didynamous fruit; ovule attached 

 along one side of its cell; stigmas fleshy, triangular-subulate, recurved. 



Fruit globose-obovoid and somewhat gibbous, 1 1 mm. long, 9 mm. broad 

 (when dry) or thereabouts, with a perfectly round top and with the remains of 

 the stigmas placed a little above the base, on the less convex side; pericarp on the 

 whole 1-1.5 mm. thick; the epicarp is smooth outside, thin and brittle in the dry 

 fruit; the mesocarp is scanty, softly parenchymatous, and apparently slightly 

 fleshy when fresh, grumose when dry; it has a layer composed of a few fibro- 

 vascular bundles in its innermost part, which form a net work very adherent to 

 the endocarp. The endocarp is thinly woody and forms a shell or putamen to 

 the seed, and is 8.5-9 woa. long, 7 mm. broad, and its inner wall remains adherent 

 to and almost connected with a large portion of the antiraphal side of the seed, 

 but is brittle and removable on the side of the Iiilum; the putamen presents also 

 on the median line of its antiraphal side a conspicuous vascular strand, which 

 leaves on the seed a more or less distinct sulcus, at times, however, quite obsolete. 



The seed is broadly ovoid-elliptical, rounded at both ends, slightly compressed 

 and flattish on the raphal side, 7.5-8 mm. long, 7 mm. broad, 6 mm. thick; the 

 raphal side is conspicuously marked by a circular central area in which, a little 

 below the centre, is placed the hilum, whence numerous, very apparent, vascular 

 ramose, whitish venations radiate. Albumen homogeneous, very slightly excavate 

 on the raphal side, because of a very superficial thickening of the integument in 

 that place, which corresponds to the external circular area spoken of above. 

 Embryo, obliquely basal, penetrating deeply into the substance of the albumen. 

 (Figure 112). 



Fruiting perianth explanate, not accrescent. (Figure 112). 



The description of the fruit given above is from the specimens numbered 

 3516 in the Herbarium C. F. Baker, which were collected near Santiago de las, 

 Vegas ; that of the flowers from Curtiss n. 432, who gathered the specimens at 

 Nuova Gerona in the Isla de Pinos. In these specimens the fruit is very slightly 

 smaller than in those from Santiago de las Vegas, and the branchlets of the 

 spadix are glabrous, whereas they are puberlous-papillose in those of the other 

 locality. The specimens of the "Plantae Cubenses Wrightianae" (n. 1467) dis- 

 tributed under the name of 0. oreodoxa oleracea are certainly 0. regia. 



Of 0. regia I have examined the following specimens: 



