3. Avicennia, Linn.

Littoral shrubs or small trees. Leaves opposite, quite entire, coriaceous. Flowers in contracted pedunculate cymes in the axils of the upper leaves or in trichotomous corymbs at the ends of the branches. Calyx short, 5-partite, unchanged in fruit. Corolla-tube short and broad; limb of 4 or 5 nearly equal spreading lobes. Stamens 4, inserted on the throat of the corolla; filaments short; anthers shortly exserted, ovate, cells parallel. Ovary imperfectly 4-celled by a 4-winged central column; ovules 4, pendulous between the wings of the column; style usually short, bifid. Capsule broad, compressed, coriaceous, 1-celled, 2-valved. Seed solitary, erect, consisting of a large embryo with the usual integuments very feebly developed; cotyledons large, folded longitudinally; radicle inferior, villous; plumule conspicuous, germinating before the fall of the fruit.

A genus comprising 2 or 3 very closely related species, widely spread along the shores of most tropical or subtropical countries.