Sarcocephalus
(from sarx, sarkos, flesh, and kephale, a head; alluding to the fleshy heads of fruit). Guinea Peach. SYN. Cephalina. ORD. Rubiaceae. A genus comprising about eight species of stove shrubs or trees, sometimes climbing, with terete or obtusely quadrigonal branchlets; they inhabit tropical Asia, Africa, and Australia. Flowers white or yellow; calyx limb truncate, obscurely five or six-toothed; corolla tubular-infundibuli-form, the limb of five or six rounded lobes; heads terminal and axillary, pedunculate, sometimes paniculate, ebracteate. Fruit globose, one-celled. Leaves opposite, petiolate, sub-coriaceous; stipules interpetoliar, mediocre and triangular or ample and obovate, deciduous. S. esculentus is an interesting, climbing shrub, seldom seen in collections. It should be grown in a compost of loam, peat, and sand. Cuttings will root, if inserted in sand, under a glass, in heat. S. cordatus requires similar treatment.
S. cordatus (heart-shaped). fl. yellow, in dense, globular heads above 1in. in diameter without the styles; corolla about 1/4in. long. May. l. broadly ovate, obtuse, rounded, cuneate, or broadly heart-shaped at base, 4in. to 10in. long, sometimes softly pubescent beneath; stipules large, quickly deciduous. h. 10ft. or more. Australia and India, 1820. A handsome tree. SYN. Nauclea coadunata.
S. esculentus (edible). Guinea, Negro, or Sierra Leone Peach. fl. pinkish, in short, terminal, pedunculate or sessile heads. July. fr. in heads the size of a peach. l. shortly petiolate, roundish-oval, shining above, pubescent in the axils of the veins beneath; stipules solitary, triangular. A tall tree, sometimes a scandent shrub, about 20ft. high. Sierra Leone, 1822.