V. On the Lecythidaceae.

Abstract

I n Gicstaviu (Plate XXXIII.A) the inflorescence, in its general features, resenibles that of most Lecythiducee ; its large yellow flowers, upon pedicels, having in their middle 2 short bractlets, possess a calyx adnate to the ovary, with a raised border, which is either short and nearly entire, or is longer and divided into 6 acute sepals ; it has 6 or 8 very large petals, unequal in size, imbricated in aestivation, severally inserted by their claws bettween the disk and the base of the androphorum, where they are all agglutinated together, so that, after fertilization of the ovary, the petals and androphorum, still united, fall off together.The androphorum differs from that of most others in this family in being equally expanded all round : it is very large, in the shape of an orbicular broad shallow cup, and seemingly composed of several superposed plates agglutinated together, successively smaller in diameter, all alike deeply cleft on thcir broad free margins, into numerous subulated segments, standing in many imbricated whorls which ciuve inwards toward the style, the inner series very short, the rest gradually lengthening outwards, until those of the outer series are nearly as long as the semidiameter of the cup.These segments have generally been mistaken for the filaments of the stamens ; but in reality they are not so, being subulated divisions of each plate, truncated or clavated at their extremity, where the true filament is inserted, this being tcrete, very slender, and usually shorter than the linear 2-celled anther, which at first opens by 2 apical pores.This feature is well depicted by Berg2.The inferior ovary is divided into 6 cells, with many ovules in each, severally suspended by distinct funicles from the placentary expansion of the central axis ; it is crowned by the sepals and annular disk, as before mentioned, the vertex or space within the latter being flattish, with st short conical style in the centre.The epigynous disk subsequently acquires a peculiar development in the fruit-a conspicuous feature throughout the whole family.The fruit is a globular pyxidium about the size of an apple, flattened on its summit, where it is encircled by a band (the enlarged disk) enclosed within two parallel zones, the lower one formed by the vestiges of the decayed sepals ; the upper one denotes the inner margin of the enlarged disk, and forms the line of its opercular dehiscence : the pericarp is coriaceous, normally 6-celled, with Mirbel, ElBm.i. 240.The more modern name andraxium, a8 opposed to gyncecium, is better applicable to the whole system of male organs, comprehended by Mirbel under the title of androphorurn, while this latter name may be limited, as is here done, to that peculiar system of male organs found onIy in Lecythiducea.a In Mart.Nor.Bras.fasc.18, tab.55. fig.14.' LOC.cit.tab.60, i n the lower h i e of figures.