OF CEXTKAL Al-'KICA. 277
Crateva Adansonii [Be Cand. ;prodr. 1, ]). 243) is ill the collection from l^oriiou. This species is estaljHshed by M. De Candollc upon a specimen in M. de Jussieu's herbarium, found in Senegal 1)y Adanson, and is supposed to differ from all the other species in having its foliola equal at the base. I have examined the specimen in ^1. de Jussieu's herbarium, in which, however, the leaves not being fully developed, I was unable to satisfy myself respecting their form, but in a specimen, also from Senegal, Avliich I received from j\I. Desfontaines, the lateral foliola, though having manifestly unequal sides, are but slightly unequal at the base, and the inequality consists in a some- what greater decurrence of the lamina on the anterior or inner margin of the footstalk. As well as can be deter- mined, in very young leaves, this is also the case in the speci- men from Bornou ; and it is manifestly so in my specimen of C. lata, which appears to belong to the same species.
Crateva Iceta was founded by M. De Candolle on a plant from Senegal, communicated by iM. Gay, from whom I also received a specimen in 1824, with the remark that it Avas not different from C. Adansonii. In that specimen [22-t the flowers are male with an imperfect pistillum ; in the plant from Bornou they are hermaphrodite, with elongated • filaments ; and in the specimen received from M. Desfon- taines they are also hermaphrodite, but the stamina, though apparently perfect, are fewer in number and shorter than the stipes of the ovarium. I have observed, however, the flowers to be in like manner polygamous in some other species of Crateva, belonging both to India and 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 ditticult to distinguish this African Crateva from a plant which seems to be the most general species of India ; exce[)t that in the latter, as in all the other species of the genus, the inequality of the lateral foliola, which is also more marked, consists in the
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