60 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
the same kind of cylindrical elongated fruit, as we have seen 
(p. 56), and its seeds are, in like manner, large, apterous, and 
closely packed together, without intervening pulp. 
The remaining genus, Parmentiera, placed by DeCandolle near 
Tanaecium on account of its bilocular ovary and indehiscent 
fruit, is referred to his tribe Crescentiece by Dr. Seemann, who, 
in detailing its generic character, affirms that the ovary is at 
first unilocular, but that by the enlargement of the placentae it 
becomes 2-4-locular in the fniit * ; but he nowhere states that 
he had examined the ovary or had witnessed the organization 
just mentioned, and we may infer that he copied this character 
from DeCandolle’s account of the fruit of P. edulis, a description 
framed entirely upon the drawing and descriptions of Mocino 
and Hernandez. It is to be regretted that in the excellent 
drawing of Parmentiera cerifera (Bot. Herald, pi. 32), no figure 
of the structure of the ovary is given ; but it will be there seen 
how remarkably that plant agrees in the peculiar shape of the 
spathaceous calyx and the form of the corolla with Spathodea, 
and scarcely less so in the shape of its cylindrical siliquose fruit, 
which, according to that drawing, is eHdently 2-valvular, with 
numerous small apterous seeds, not enveloped in pulp, but fixed 
to a greatly enlarged central dissepiment that nearly fills the 
whole space within the valves, precisely as in the genus last 
mentioned and in Stereospermum. Dr. Seemann mentions that 
the fruits of P. cerifera are given as food to cattle, when mixed 
with Guinea-grass and a kind of sweet potato, but does not say 
which part of the fruit is eaten : this probably is the pericarpial 
or valvular covering, which he defines as a “ fructus carnosus,” 
similar to that of P. edulis, described as being baccate and fleshy 
like a cucumber, which it resembles in form : this agrees with the 
fruit of Spathodea campanulata, which again ofiPers much analogy 
in its internal structui’e with that of Parmentiera cerifera, whose 
fruit is said by Dr. Seemann to be “ epulposa," — its seeds, like 
small lentils, being figured as seated around the greatly enlarged 
dissepiment, within the small annular space left between it and 
the pericarpial covering. If, therefore, Parmentiera be found to 
have a bilocular ovary with numerous ovules upon the dissepi- 
ment, the genus ought at once to be consigned to the Bigno- 
niacece ; indeed its characters appear wholly at variance with the 
Crescentiacece. As its species form upright trees, it probably 
belongs to the tribe Catalpece, and will find its place near Spa- 
thodea (where DeCandolle was originally disposed to fix it), there 
being a very close approximation in the form and structure of 
Hook. Kew Journ. Bot. ix. 82. 
