LIV. THEOPHRASTACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and entire coriaceous persistent leaves. Flowers perfect, regular; calyx campanulate, with 5 sepals imbricated in the bud; corolla 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, with 5 staminodia attached below the sinuses; stamens 5, attached to the base of the corolla-tube, opposite the lobes; ovary 1-celled, with a simple style and a slightly 5-lobed stigma; ovules peltate, numerous, attached to a central fleshy placenta, amphitropous. Fruit baccate, many-seeded. Seeds immersed in the thickened placenta filling the cavity of the fruit; seed-coat membranaceous; embryo surrounded by thick cartilaginous albumen.
A tropical American family of four genera with one species reaching the shores of southern Florida.