Ocotea (okotea)

[NL. (Aublet, 1775), from a native name in Guiana.] A large genus of trees of the apetalous order Laurinea and the tribe Perseaceæ, known by the four-celled anthers contracted at the base, one pair of cells above the other. There are about 150 species, mostly of tropical America, with a few in the Canary and Mascarene Islands and South Africa. They bear alternate or scattered rigid feather-veined leaves, small panicled flowers, and globose or oblong berries crowning the thickened calyx-tube. O. fætens is the til-tree of the 4077 oct a drachm, octodrachm (ok'ta-, ok'tō-dram), η. [ A fine gold octodrachm of Ptolemy IV., the owner of the vase, struck in Cyprus. The Academy, June 15, 1889, p. 418.