56 



ESSENTIALS OF VEGETABLE PHARMACOGNOSY 



teiicy, while in others it is fleshy or sub- 

 corneous. A great many legumes of his 

 family are not only inriehiscent, bot 

 winged and one seeded, and thus are trye 

 samaraa. The fruit of the Dipteryx is 

 one seeded and tar liiy dehiscent, but tht^ 

 pericarp is enormously thickened and 

 woody or corky. That of the Cassia Fis- 

 tula has its seeds enclosed in a pulp and 

 partly separated from one another by 

 transverse septa. It is thus apparent that 

 many legumes pertain >o our first, rather 

 than to our second* division. Two dis- 

 tinctive forma of the legume have become 

 dignified by the application of special 

 names, as follows: — 



The Loment (Fig. 301 A, B) is a legumin- 



ous fruit which may or may not be dehis- 

 cent, but which is separable at maturity by 

 transverse divisions into one-seeded parts^ 

 In the Desmodium these parts are adapt- 

 ed to fixation to passing bodies, or occa- 

 sionally much flattened and expanded to 

 act as samaras. In the sophora the joints 

 are smooth, hard and rounded, and highly 

 elastic, so that in falling upon the stony 

 soil they are adapted to bounding and 

 rolling to a considerable distance. The 

 term loment has also been extended to in- 

 clude those siliques which display a sim- 

 ilar character. 



The Cochlea (Fig. 302) is a legume 

 which IS spirally coiled. 



The Silique (Fig. 303) is a di-carpellary 



