232 LXXXV. ASCLEPIADE2 (BROWN). 
adjacent anthers ; when granular, each granule is formed of 4 pollen- 
grains united together, and, on the dehiscence of the anthers, the whole 
is loosely contained in the horny, spoon- trumpet- or trowel-shaped or 
bifid pollen-carriers. Pistil superior, formed of 2, 1-celled, many- 
ovuled (very rarely 1-ovuled) carpels, free below, but with their styles 
united above and dilated into a pentagonal disk, which is flat or 
depressed, with or without a small, central, simple or bilobed apiculus, 
or convex or pyramidal or prolonged into a short or long beak of 
variable form (termed the apical part of the style in the following 
descriptions), which is entire, bilobed, bifid, or dilated at the apex, or 
rarely there arises from the disk 2, 5 or 7 style-like processes. On the 
angles of the dilated part of the style are seated the pollen-carriers, 
and immediately beneath them behind the fissures between the anther- 
wings are the 5 stigmatic cavities. Ovules numerous or very rarely few 
or solitary, anatropous, pendulous, imbricate in several series on the 
projecting placenta. Frait of two parallel or divaricate follicles, or by 
abortion of one follicle, variable in form, smooth, echinate or winged, 
dehiscing by the ventral suture and usually liberating the placenta. 
Seeds usually numerous, very rarely few or solitary, imbricate, flat or 
cochleate usually with a broad or narrow margin, crowned with a tuft 
of long silky hairs or rarely densely fringed all round with them, very 
rarely without a tuft of hairs at one end; testa rather thick or sub- 
crustaceous ; albumen thin or none; embryo straight, nearly or quite 
tilling the seed; cotyledons flat ; radicle superior.—Herbs or shrubs 
often with a tuberous rootstock or fleshy roots. Juice milky or 
watery. Stems simple or branched, often twining, sometimes succulent 
and leafless, with terete or angular branches, which are often toothed 
or spiny at the angles. Leaves opposite or whorled, rarely alternate, 
thin or fleshy. Flowers very variable in size and form, solitary oF 
few or many together, in umbels, umbel-like cymes, fascicles, or 
racemes, axillary, lateral between the bases of the leaves, or terminal. 
A large Order of over 1800 species widely spread throughout the Tropical and 
Subtropical regions of the earth, a few in the Temperate regions. 
This Order is well marked by the peculiar structure of its pollen apparatus, 
coronal appendages and stigma, but in other characters it is similar to Apocynaceé- 
In having the pollen contents of each anther-cell combined into a waxy mass and 
united by caudicles in pairs to the pollen-carriers, it is unique among Dicotyledonovs 
orders, and in this character resembles the Orchidee among Monocotyledons- 
The stigmas are also very remarkable, not only are there 5 stigmas or rather 
stigmatic points, whilst there are only 2 carpels, but they are completely hidden 
from view behind the anther-wings and can only be seen by careful dissect:on oF by 
making transverse sections of the dilated part of the style ; the only openings to the 
stigmas are the 5 narrow fissures formed by the contiguous anther-wings (the rigid 
horny margins of the anthers). No other Order has a similar structure, a detailed 
account of which and of the manner of fertilisation will be found in the Trans- 
actions of the Linnean Society, ser. 2, Bot. ii. 75 and 173, tt. 16, 24-26. 
The Order is of no great importance economically, many species are poisonous, 
some are medicinal and the tubers of several are greeaily eaten by the natives, a8 are 
likewise the fleshy stems of the tribe Stapeliee. Several species have tough fibres 
that might be of economic use. The Asclepiadee are a very difficult group to 
