COLUMNIFERJE. 



427 



I. Carpels in one whorl. 



A. The fruit a capsule, most frequently with loculicidal 

 dehiscence, and many seeds in each loculus. 



I. GOSSYPIE^. The staminal-column is naked at the apex, 

 blunted, or5-dentate. Gossypinm (the Cotton plant) has an epicalyx 

 of 3 large ovate-cordate leaves, an almost entire, low and compressed 

 calyx. Solitary flowers. Large, most frequently yellow, corollas. 

 A 3-5-valved capsule with many spherical seeds. " Cotton " is the 

 seed-hairs developed upon the entire surface of the seeds (Fig. 

 447), and consists of long, 1-cellular hairs, filled with air (and 

 therefore white) ; these are thin-walled, with a large lumen, and 

 during drying twist spirally, and come together more or less in 

 the form of bands. They consist of cellulose, and have a cuticle. 

 Hibiscus has several, most frequently narrow, epicalyx-leaves, a 

 distinct 5-toothed or 5-partite calyx. A^ntilon ; Modinla. 



A B 



FIG. 447. A Seed of Gossypium with hairs ; B the same in longitudinal section. 



2. BOMBACE^E. The staminal tube is more or less deeply cleft into bundles, 

 sometimes almost to the base ; pollen smooth, style simple with capitate, lobed 

 stigma. Almost all plants belonging to this group are trees, and in many 

 instances have large barrel-shaped stems, that is, swollen in the centre, and 

 sometimes covered with large warts. The wood is exceptionally light and soft. 

 The flowers are often enormously large, and have beautiful petals ; iu some they 

 unfold before the leaves. The capsule-wall is sometimes closely covered on its 

 inner service with long, silky, woolly hairs, while the seeds themselves are gener- 

 ally without hairs. These hairs, however, on account of their brittle nature, 

 cannot be used like those of the Cotton-plant. Digitate leaves are found in the 

 Baobab-tree (Adansonia) from Africa, noted for its enormously thick, but short 

 stem, and in the American Silk-cotton trees (Bombax, Eriodendron, Chorisia). 

 Ochroma, Cheirostemon, Durio, and others also belong to this group. Durio is 

 noted for its delicious fruits, which have a most unpleasant smell. 



[Bombax malabaricum is diplostemonous ; the five sepal-stamens repeatedly 



