420 MORPHOLOGY OF THE ANGIOSPERMS 



fascicles" are frequent in taxonomic descriptions of the family and of 

 certain genera. The fasciculate condition is doubtless ancestral for the 

 family but, in living forms, is greatly reduced. The innermost whorl 

 may consist of nectaries only, or of lanceolate staminodes. Anatomical 

 evidence that the cluster is a fascicle is seen in Laurus, where a single 

 bundle, a "trunk bundle," divides into three trace bundles — the outer 

 one normally oriented, the inner two inverted. The inverted bundles, in 

 their course to the base of the stamen, where they enter the nectary 

 stalk, twist and become normally oriented. (A similar vascular supply 

 of stamen fascicles is present in other taxa — Dilleniaceae, Guttiferae. ) 

 Where there are five whorls, as in UmbcJhdaria, the innermost fascicles 

 are reduced to lanceolate staminodes; yet these minute organs still re- 

 tain the three-trace supply of a fascicle. 



A fasciculate androecium is also present in some of the Monimiaceae 

 and, with valvate dehiscence, strengthens other evidence for fairly close 

 relationship of the Monimiaceae, Gomortegaceae, Hernandiaceae, and 

 Lauraceae. 



The gynoecium, with its apparently solitary carpel and a single ovule, 

 is more advanced than the androecium, with its four or five whorls of 

 sporophylls. But the gynoecium is basically tricarpellate. Umbclhilaria 

 frequently shows additional carpels, and Cassijtha is shown by anatomy 

 to be tricarpellate. The solitary ovule is anatropous and attached 

 distally. 



The xylem has a mixture of primitive and advanced characters: both 

 scalariform and simply perforate vessel elements; fiber tracheids and 

 libriform fibers; heterogeneous rays and alternate intervascular pitting. 

 Wood structure supports the high rank within the Ranales commonly 

 given the Lauraceae. 



Some Families Less Well Known Morphologically, Commonly 



Placed in the Ranales 



Little detailed information about the morphology of the small tropical 

 families Hernandiaceae and Canellaceae is available. Both have been 

 considered related to the Myristicaceae. The Canellaceae are advanced 

 in the connation of their numerous stamens and their apparently syn- 

 carpous gynoecium — "one-loculate with several parietal placentae" — 

 and seem hardly ranalian. The presence of lateral appendages on the 

 stamens of the Hernandiaceae is perhaps evidence of relationship to 

 the Myristicaceae or to the Lauraceae. 



The Trimeniaceae, a small family, recently segregated from the 

 Monimiaceae, show primitive characters in the lack of distinction in 

 the floral axis of pedicel and receptacle; in the intergrading of bracteoles 

 and tepals; in their numerous stamens; in their two-trace nodes and 



