Burckella Pierre

Trees with leaves crowded at tip of thick branchlets; stipules subulate or narrowly deltoid, caducous; leaves, obovate or obovate-oblong, tertiary nerves ascending near the midrib, transverse near the margins of the leaf; flowers crowded at tips of branchlets, forming a pseudo-terminal, many-florous inflorescence; calyx with two whorls of two lobes each; corolla exsert, tube solid, pubescent without at apex, petals 8, imbricate; stamens 9—40, inserted in one or two rows in the throat; style subulate, exsert, glabrous; ovary glabrous, 3—8-celled, cells 1-ovuled, ovules attached at the apex of the central axis; sometimes an indistinct annular disc present; fruit large, often edible, crowned by the persistent style; fruit usually 1-seeded; seed ovoid with large to very large scar and apical hilum; testa thick, crustaceous; albumen none or membranous, if present especially around the radicle; cotyledons fleshy; radicle inferior, not exsert — 11 species distributed from the Moluccas to the Samoa and Tonga Islands. The last revision of this genus was given by Lam in 1942. After a small but important publication of White (J. Arn. Arb. 31, 1, 1950, 104) and the investigation of some new collections it seemed appropriate to give a concise revision of this genus in preparation for the “Flora Malesiana”. Some new species are described and of some old ones more details are given. The publications of Lam are abbreviated as follows: 1925 = The Sapotaceae, etc. of the Dutch East Indies, Bull. Jard. Bot. Bzg, sér. 3, 7, 1925, 112. Lam 1927 = Further studies etc., Bull. Jard. Bot. Bzg, sér. 3, 8, 1927, 381. Lam 1932 = Sapotaceae, in Nova Guinea 14, 4, 1932, 554. Lam 1942 = A tentative list of wild Pacific Sap. etc., Blumea 5, I, 1942, 36.