Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1/Flacourtianeae
XIV—FLACOURTIANEAE.
A small order, consisting of trees and shrubs, with alternate, exstipulate, simple, coriaceous entire or serrated leaves; and axillary, solitary, or racemose, hermaphrodite or unisexual flowers.
Sepals from 4 to 7, cohering slightly at the base. Petals equalling them in number, and alternate with the sepals, sometimes wanting. Stamens inferior, either equalling the sepals, or some multiple of them, often very numerous, and occasionally changed into nectariferous scales. Ovary roundish, distinct, more or less stalked ; style either wanting or filiform ; stigmas several, more or less distinct, and spreading star-like on the apex of the ovary. Fruit 1 -celled baccate and indihiscent, or capsular, and 4 or 5-valved, filled with thin pulp ; seeds irregularly attached to branched placentse, spread over the surface of the pericarp, often enveloped in a pellicle of dry withered pulp. Albumen fleshy, somewhat oily. Embryo straight in the axis, with the radicle urned towards the hilum ; cotyledons flat foliacious. Affinities. According to DeCandolle, this order is allied to Capparideae , and Passifloreae, but is distinguished from both by the branched placentae spreading over the whole of the inside of the fruit, a character so peculiar, that he considers it sufficient to distinguish them from all the other dicotyledonous orders. They certainly resemble Capparidece in several particulars, but are sufficiently distinguished by their peculiar fruit, their albuminous seed, their straight embryo, and many of them by their unisexual flowers, which are of very rare occurrence in Capparideae.
Essential Character. Potypetalous. Stamens either few, equalling the petals, or very numerous. Ovaries wholly superior, combined into a solid pistil, with the placentas parietal, spread over the whole inner surface — leaves without stipules. The petals are sometimes wanting, and the flowers often unisexual.
Geographical Distribution. Peculiarly a tropical order, nearly all found in the warmer parts of the East and West Indies. A few are found in Africa, one in Senegambia, one or more in Madagascar, two or three at the Cape, among which, I learn, is a species of Phoberos. Some are met with in the Eastern Archipelago, among which I believe is the genus Hydnocarpus, which Blume proposes to remove to his new order, Pangiaceae.
Properties and Uses. But little is known of these. The young shoots and leaves of Flacourtia Cataphracta Roxb., which have the taste, but not the bitterness of Rhubarb, are considered astringent and stomachic, in the Circars, and are prescribed in cases of diarrhoea and general feebleness, while in Bahar, a cold infusion of the bark is used in cases of hoarseness : the infusion of Fl. sepiaria is considered useful in bites of snakes ; the bark rubbed with oil and made into a liniment is employed against gout on the Malabar coast.
The fruit of most of the Flacourtias are acidulous, and pleasant tasted. Those of F. Ramonchi, a Madagascar plant, but now occasionally met with in our gardens, are about the size, and have much the appearance and taste of our small black winter plums, and I am informed make an excellent tart fruit. A species of Roumia found in the Ceylon jungles has a fruit very similar to the above, and is prized in Colombo, where it has recently been introduced, on account of its fruit, which are about the size of large cherries, somewhat acidulous, with a very agreeable flavour. The fruit of both Flacourtia sapida and sepiaria which are common in our jungles, possess like the others, when fully ripe, a pleasant acid taste, and are very refreshing, as I have more than once experienced, to the heated and thirsty sportsman. The plant here figured presents a remarkable contrast to the rest of the order, since its fruit are poisonous, and are employed in Ceylon to poison fish, which afterwards become so unwholesome as to be unfit for food. On the Malabar Coast an oil is extracted from the seed which is employed as an external application in a variety of cutaneous diseases, and in irritations affecting the eyes, causing an excessive flow of acrid tears. An anomaly so striking as that presented by the poisonous properties of this plant, compared with the salutary ones of the rest of the order, affords strong evidence, in support of the opinion of Blume, that this, and one or two other genera referred here, should be removed and united to form a distinct order, a course which he has followed, giving the name Pangiacece to the new order, from Pangium, one of the genera referred to it. As I have not seen his paper on the subject, I am unable to state his reasons for this determination, or to offer any opinion on their merits.
Remarks on Genera and Species. This is a small a order, 27 species only, referable to it, being known to DeCandolle when he published his Prodromus. The Number has been considerably augmented since then, partly owing its characters being now better understood, leading to several, previously doubtful genera, being placed in it, among these are Roxburgh's Gynocardia, now referred to Hydnocarpus and Louriro's Phoberos which seems to have been unknown to DeC. as it is not noticed. Chaulmoogra of Roxburghs (Fl. Ind. 3. p. 835) is evidently the same as Gynocardia of his Coromandel plants, about which, there is a curious, though unimportant, error in Dr. Lindley's Natural System of Botany, the one being referred, without a doubt, to Flacourtianece, and retained as one of the genera of that order ; while the other, is reduced to a synonym of Hydnocarpus, and referred to Pangiaceae, The genus Phoberos of Louriro which seemed to have been very imperfectly known, previous to the publication of our Prodromus, is now referred here, but not, it would appear, without leaving some grounds to doubt the correctness of this determination, since Dr. Lindley has placed it doubtfully at the end of the list of genera belonging to the order, which appears the more remarkable, as Dr. Wallich referred every one of our species to the genus Flacourtia, from which however it is well distinguished by its hermaphrodite flowers, and the curious prolongation of the connectivum beyond the cells of the anther. The genus Oncoba, an African genus which seems very closely allied to Phoberos in a number of particulars, has been, by Dr. Lindley, placed among the Bixinece, whence I infer it is the near affinity existing between these two genera, that has induced him to view Phoberos as a doubtful member of this order. Of the genus Roumia, Col. Walker has found a species in Ceylon, which however I refrain from designating as I have considerable doubts of the stability of the genus, and have not at present the means of clearing them up. Of the genus Phoberos Ceylon produces one or two species, and at Courtallem, I met with one which attains the size of a pretty large tree. I am still uncertain whether to consider this one as distinct from R. Wightianus, a Neilgherry plant, as the difference of station may perhaps have caused the difference in appearance existing between them.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 16.
1. Flowering branch of Hydnocarpus inebrians female—natural size.
2. Male flower, showing sepals, petals, scales and stamens.
3. 4, 5. Petal, scale, and stamen detached.
6. Female or fertile flower, showing the sepals, stamens, ovary and stigma. The stamens in this figure are placed alternate, in place of opposite the sepals, which is an error of the draughtsman overlooked at the time of making the drawing.
7, 8. Petal and scale detached.
9. Stamen of the female flower, the anthers are empty of Pollen.
10. Ovary cut transversely, showing in that instance three placentae, they vary in number, and I have seen as many as 6 in one ovary, they correspond with the number of lobes of the stigma.
11. A small but full grown fruit, cut transversely to show the seeds which are surrounded with thin viscid pulp.
12. Seed cut transversely.
13. A seed which had begun to vegetate, showing the young radicle.
14. Embryo removed, showing the foliacious cotyledons and radicle.
FLACOURTIANEÆ.jpg)
HYDNOCARPUS INEBRIANS.