Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/478

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POLYADELPHIA.

outside, and each bears at its summit 4 sessile, obtuse, spreading anthers. Aublet's figure of this genus, which Schreber and Willdenow seem to have followed, represents but 2. The fruit is perhaps most properly a berry with a hard coat, whose seeds, when roasted, make chocolate. Bubroma of Schreber, Guazuma Lamarck, t. 637, confounded by Linnæus with the preceding genus, has similar filaments, but each bears 5 anthers; Jussieu and Cavanilles say 3. The fruit is a woody capsule, with 10 rows of perforations. Abroma, Jacq. Hort. Vind. v. 3. t. 1. Miller Illustr. t. 63, has 5 parcels of anthers, nearly sessile on the outside of the nectary, between its obtuse, reflexed, notched lobes. It is difficult to say how many anthers compose each parcel, for the different accounts on record are totally irreconcileable. We have found 3; the drawing sent to Linnæus represents 6; and Miller has a much greater number. Perhaps they may vary. In this uncertainty the genus in question is best placed with its natural allies in this order, with a reference to it in italics at the end of Polyadelphia Polyan-