ooo 
166 _ PENTANDRIA. DIGYNTA. 
3 — OUSs sessile, angles opening by 5 longitudinal 
chinks. Follicles 2, ventricose, acuminate, smooth 
or muricate. Seed comose. 
Shrubby or herbaceous, stems erect; leaves opposite, or 
alternate, rarely verticillate; peduncles axillary and termi- 
nal, solitary; flowersin umbells, numerous.—Antheridium 
(antheroid cells, anthers, of some) conic-cylindric, (resem- 
bling the 5 united anthers in Syngenesious florets,) sessile 
or subsessile, crustaceous, separable only by five longitudi- 
nal chinks, into 5 lobes, connected to the stigma both above 
and below, lobes antheroid, 2-celled, cells open, margin 
reflected, salient, terminating above in membranaceous 
ovate cusps. Pollinia (concrete masses of pollen) 5 pa'rs 
even, suspended from the ‘of the stigma, clavate, 
compressed, diaphanous, solid and concrete, of a yellow, 
waxy substance, united together by a small, black, cloven 
tubercle; alternating in the cells of the antheridium, cach - 
Pair being common to 2 lobes. Style none. Stigma dis- 
coid, pentagonal. Follicles smooth, or muricated with 
soft and flexible spines (as in A. syriaca, &c.) Seeds 
pendulous by the coma, obtusely obovate and compressed, 
or subelliptic, surrounded by a double winged margins 
__—- perisperm thin and carnose; embryon flat; radicle in- 
_-_-verted. Receptacle free, with lateral, imbricated, longi- 
tudinal lamella for the reception of the seminal coma.—The 
_ flowers of the larger species of this genus have the pro- 
--perty of mechanicall linsects. The Mus- 
