NOTELJEA. 
25 
fil., 2-celled, bursting laterally; pollen bright y. Ov. large 
smooth gr. fleshy subangular ovate-oblong, elliptic or subelon- 
gato-conic, narrowing upwards and crowned by the large capi- 
tate yellowish perfectly sessile deflexedly 2-lobed stigma. 
Ovules geminate in each cell, oblong or elliptic. Fr. an erect 
drupe, at first red then dark v.-blue with a fine blue bloom re- 
sembling a small damson-plum, elliptic-oval, 9-10 lines long, 
4-5 lines broad, fleshy or even pulpy but not juicy or in the 
least oily, sweet but intensely bitter with a slight astringency, 
not wholly unpleasant, yet not eaten. Flesh scarcely one line 
thick dark-coloured, reddish towards the stone ; the latter large 
elliptic acute at each end, hard and bony, with 2 opposite pro- 
minent (sutural) ribs and 3 intermediate (8 in all) anastomosing 
by transverse branchlets towards the top, and complicated at 
the base by other short longitudinal ribs reaching only partly 
up the intermediate spaces of the 8 stronger ribs, 1-celled by 
abortion of the 2nd cell. Shell between crustaceous and bony, 
not very hard, about 1 mill, thick, smooth and satiny inside. 
Seed single large ellipsoidal sharp-pointed at each end, \ in. 
long, half as broad, not compressed, smooth and brown like an 
almond, nearly tasteless but very slightly bitter, composed 
wholly of the somewhat horny, not brittle or fleshy albumen, 
curiously impresso-venulose longitudinally, attached by the 
hilum a little above the middle to the rather long membran- 
ously winged or dilated pseudo-arillate funiculus which rises 
vertically from the base of the cell, being thus truly, though 
laterally, pendulous. Wings of aril curiously striolate closely 
and parallelly, and cleft or toothed at the edges. Embryo 
straight, longitudinally axile in a large roomy central hollow, 
very large, distinct, whiter than the albumen or rest of the 
kernel. 
The wood of this tr. is extremely heavy, hard and solid. A 
cube of it barely floats in water with the upper side level with 
the surface. It is highly valued for purposes in which strength 
and toughness, combined with hardness, are required; such as 
especially the keels of large and heavy boats, liable to constant 
shocks and grinding on a rocky or shingly beach. Hence the 
yearly increasing scarceness of the tr., which indeed seems 
likely soon to become extinct altogether, though it can be raised 
most readily from seed. 
Piiillyrea Lowei DC. viii. 293 ( Olca microcarpa Lowe MSS. oiim, 
not Vahl) was founded on spec, from 2 or 3 bushes in the 
shrubberies of the late J. D. W. Gordon Esq. at the Mount, 
1900 ft. above the sea, and alleged by his Portuguese gar- 
VOL. II. * C 
