496 DE. M. T. MASTERS ON THE SXHLX^TURE OF THE 



central ones are barren. These plialanges, or compound stamens, 

 are placed opposite to the petals. In form the filaments resemble 

 the segments of the second whorl of the corona ; they are cream- 

 coloured for the greater portion of their extent, but the points 

 are of a pale claret-colour. Their basal portions are erect, or 

 nearly so ; as they separate from the corona they bend inwards 

 towards the centre of the flower in a nearly horizontal direction ; 

 w^hile their points are first bent downwards and outwards, and 

 then a little inwards, so as to bring the anthers beneath the stigma 

 and between it and a thick fleshy disk placed around the ovary. In 

 the case of the sterile filaments the last curve inwards does not 

 occur. The number of perfect anthers is generally ten, as before 

 said ; but the number varies in diff^erent flowers from five to fif- 

 teen. Owing to the points of the sterile stamens being bent in a 

 different direction from the fertile ones, the anthers come so close 

 that four, or five, or more seem to be in immediate proximity one 

 to another ; and this evidently led Palisot de Beauvois to describe 

 and figure them as five stamens each bearing two anthers. The 

 anthers in all the flowers that I have examined are one-celled and 

 extrorse — though, from the peculiar way in which the stamens are 

 bent, the face of the anther is turned towards the style ; occa- 

 sionally at the back of the anther may be seen little folds, which 

 may be the traces of a second anther-cell. Within the stamens is an 

 annular, fleshy, yellow disk, obscurely lobed on the inner surface, 

 and forming a shallow cup round the style. The ovary is deeply 

 sunk within the tube of the calyx, or, rather, wdthin the dilated 

 and expanded top of the flower-stalk. It is divided into four or 

 five compartments, each compartment having four ovules in a 

 double line attached along its inner angle. In some flowers there 

 is a tendency towards obliteration of the partitions and placentas 

 in the upper part of the ovary, so that it becomes partially and 

 spuriously one-celled, and the portion of placenta that remains 

 assumes an appearance as though it were a direct prolongation 

 of the axis (free central). The ovules themselves are horseshoe- 

 shaped, with a very short horizontal funiculus. Surmoimting the 

 ovary is a thick, cylindrical or somewhat angular fleshy style, 

 terminated by a flat, tabular, foxir- or five-angled stigma, which is 

 marked on the upper surface by four or five radiating peach- 

 coloured lines, the lines starting from a central depression, and 

 terminating in a similar glandiJar pit alternating with the sepals, 

 so that the stigmatic lobes themselves are placed opposite to the 

 lobes of the calvx. 



