256 
VERBEKACE.®. 
[Fit ex. 
with opposite simple or digitate leaves, the flowers either cymose or 
panicled. Distrib. Tropics of both hemispheres, principally the New 
World. Species 50. 
Leaves beneath and branches whitish. Flowers in ample 
terminal panicles. 
Leaflets 1-3, sessile * Y. trifolia. 
Leaflets 5, stalked * V. Negundo. 
Glabrous. Flowers in simple axillary cymes 1. V. Pervillei. 
* V. trifolia , Linn. ; DC. Prod. xi. 683, a native of Tropical Asia, 
widely spread in cultivation, is half-naturalised both in Mauritius and 
Seychelles (Sieber, ii. 283 ! etc.). It is a shrub, with the leaves beneath 
and calyx clothed with white tomentum, leaflets 1-3-nate sessile 
obovate-oblong green above, and abundant small flowers arranged in 
deltoid panicles. 
# V. Negundo , Linn. ; DC. Prod. xi. 684 ; Bot. Mag. t. 364, also 
Tropical x\sian, and common in cultivation, is given as Mauritian in 
the Prodromus on faith of Sieber, ii. 161, but is not even naturalised. 
It has the copious small tomentose panicled flowers of V. trifolia , but 
the leaflets are 5 in number, on long petiolules, and are merely puber- 
ulent, not canescent beneath. 
1. V. Pervillei^ Baker. A shrub, glabrous in all its parts, with 
slender terete branchlets. Leaves digitately trifoliolate, subcoriaceous, 
glabrous, venulose ; leaflets nearly sessile, oblong, 1-lf in. long, 
narrowed gradually from the middle to a rather obtuse point, cuneate 
spathulate at the base ; petiole an inch long. Cymes simple, short- 
peduncled, few-flowered, axillary and terminal, seen in the fruiting 
stage only ; pedicels i-f in. long, thickened at the apex. Pruit-calyx 
i in. long, broadly campanula te, obscurely toothed. Drupe obovoid, 
\ in. long. 
Seychelles, Perville, 636 ! Also Madagascar, Perville , 870 bis! 
Mr. Horne sends leaves (No. 547 !) of a second Seychelles species which is 
probably unnamed and endemic, which he describes as a large tree common in many 
parts of Mahe on the shore. It is glabrous, with digitately 5-foliolate leaves, like 
those of V. leucoxylon , Linn, the leaflets long-stalked (1-1^ in.), obovate-oblong, 6-10 
in. by 3-3f in., obtuse with a cuneate base and obscurely crenulate margins, sub- 
coriaceous and flexible in texture with distinct distant erecto-patent main 
veins. 
7. AVICENNIA, Linn. 
Calyx campanulate, coriaceous, divided nearly to the base into 5 round 
obtuse much-imbricated lobes. Corolla with a short tube and 5 round 
obovate-oblong subequal lobes. Stamens 4, subequal, the anthers just ex- 
serted from the corolla- tube. Ovary 2-celled ; ovules 2 in a cell, collate- 
ral; stigmabifid, subsessile. Fruit ovoid, coriaceous, indehiscent, the thick 
