specimen the flowers are male1 with an impérfect pistillum ft in the plant from Bornou they are hermaphrodite, with elongated filaments; andinthespeeimen received from .Mi Desfontaines.they are also hermaphrodite,“ but the stamina, though apparently perfect, are fewer in number and shorter than the stipes of the ovarium, »di' have observed, however, the flowers to be'in like manner polygamous in'some other species of Crateva,- belonging both to India ami America, a fact which materially lessens the dependence to be placed on'characters taken from the number and length of the stamina in this genus. ' ' , Crateva Adansonii, it would-appear, then, is the only known'species of the African continent, for-C. fragrans does not belong to the genus. And it will be difficult to distinguish this African Crateva from a plant which seems to1 be the most general species of India ; except that in the latter, as in all the other species-oof--the genus,1- the inequality of the lateral foliola; which is also more marked, consists in the greater decurrence of the lamina being on the outer or posterior margin of the footstalk. This Indian species; which may be naffied C. Roxburghii, is the Capparis trifoliata of Dr. Roxburgh’s manuscripts,’ hut not Niirvala of Hortus Malabaricus (vol. 3. p.49. t. 42), as he considers it; I have little doubt - of its being also the plant described as C.- Tapia, by Vahl, (symbi 3. p. 61.) his specific character well according with it, and not applying, as far as relates to the petals,-to any known species of-America; - ' But as this character is .adopted by Sir James Smith (in Rees’s Cyclop.},! it may likewise be C. Tapia of the Linnsean herbarium; a conjecture thè morè probable as Linnaeus has distinguished his Tapia by its ovate petals from gynandra, in which they- are said to be lanceolate (Sp. ph ed. 2. p. 637). This celebrated herbarium;.,however, is here of no authority, for Linmeus was never in possession;of,sufficient materials to enable him to understand either the structure and- limits- of-the genus Crateva, or the* distinctions of its species ; and the specific name in question, under which he originally included all the species of the genus, ought surely to be applied to an American plant, at least, and if possible to that of Piso, with whom it originated. It is hardly to be supposed that the plant intended by Piso can now with certainty be determined ; the only species from Brazil, however, with which I am acquainted, well accords with his figure and short description. This Brazilian species is readily distinguishable both from C. Adansonii and Roxburghii, by the form of its petals,, which, as in all the other American species, are narrowoblong or lanceolate; and from C. gynandra by the shortness of its stipes genitalium, or torus. Crateva Tapia so constituted, is, on the authority of a fragment communicated by Professor Schrader, the Cleome arborea of that author, (in Gcett. Anzeig. 1821, p. 707. De Cand. Prodr. 1. p. 242.) ; nor is there any thing in the character of C. acuminata of De Candolle (Prodr. 1. p. 243) which does not well apply to our plant. C. Tapia, as given by M. De Candolle (op. tit.'), is characterized chiefly on the authority of Plumier’s figure, in the accuracy of which, either as to the number or length of stamina, it is difficult to believe, especially when we find it also representing the petals inserted by pairs on the two upper sinuses of the calyx. The genus Crateva agrees, as I have already stated, in the remarkable aestivation of its flower with Cleome Gymnogonia, by which character, along with that of its fruit, it is readily distinguished from every other genus of the order. Although this character of its aestivation has never before been remarked, yet all the species, referred to Crateva by M. De Candolle, really belong to it, except C. fragrans, which, with some other plants from the same continent, forms a very distinct genus, that I shall name R it c h ie a , in memory of the African traveller, whose botanical merits have been already noticed. C a p pa k is so d a d a nob. Sodada decidua, Forsk. Arab. p. 81. Delile, Flore d’Egypte, p. 74. tab. 26. De Cand. Prodr. 1. p. 245. . The specimen in the herbarium is marked by Dr. Oudney as belonging to a tree common on the boundaries of Bornou. It is probably the Suag, mentioned in his journal, observed first at Aghedem, and said to be “ a tetrandrous plant having a small drupa, which is in great request in Bornou and Soudan, for removing sterility in females: it is sweetish and hot to the taste, approaching to Sisymbrium Nasturtium;” and that I in passing the plant a heavy narcotic smell is always perceived.” I have here united Sodada with Capparis, not being able to find differences sufficient to authorise its separation even from the first section of that genus, as given by De Candolle. Forskal describes his plant as octandrous, and M. De Candolle has adopted this number in his generic character. M. Delile (op. tit.), however, admits that the stamina vary from eight to fifteen; and, in the specimen which I off ¿O?'
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