BiGNOMALES.] 



PEDALIACE^. 



669 



Order CCLIX. PEDALIACE^.— Pedaliads. 



Pedalinac, R. Brown Prodr. 51J). (1810) ; Lindleij in Botan. Ref/ister, 9. 934. (1825) ; Endl. Gen. cliii. 

 — Sesa nea?, Kunth Siptops. 2. 251. (1823) ; Bartl. Ord. Nat. 175 ; Endlicher in Linncea, Vll. 1. ; 

 Alt>h. DC. Prodr. 9. 249 ; Beiiihardi in Ann. Sc. Aat. n. s. 18. 365.— Martyniaceae, Linii Ilandb. 

 1. 504. (1829). 



Diagnosis. — Blgnonial Exogens, with parietal placentce, hony or capsular fruit, an amyg- 

 daloid emhi^Oj and slioH radicle. 



Herbaceous plants, often with a soft texture, and heavy smell, covered with glandular 

 hairs, or quaternary vesicles. Leaves opposite or alteruate, undivided, angular, or 

 lobed, ^vithout stipules. Flowers axillary, solitary, 

 or clustered, usually large, and furnished in many 

 cases with conspicuous bracts. Calyx divided into 5 

 nearly equal pieces. Corolla monopetalous, hypogy- 

 nous, u'regular ; the throat ventricose, the hmb bila- 

 biate, the lobes somewhat valvate in aestivation. Disk 

 hypogynous, fleshy, sometimes glandular. Stamens 

 didynamous, included within the tube, together with 

 a rudiment of a fifth. Anthers 2-celled ; the con- 

 nective articulated with the filament, a httle prolonged 

 beyond the cells, terminated by a gland. Ovary 

 seated in a glandular disk, 1 -celled, formed of two 

 carpellary leaves, anterior and posterior as regards 

 the axis, sometimes div-ided into 4 or 6 spurious cells 

 by the splitting of two placentas and the divergence 

 of their lobes ; ovules anatropal, either erect, or pen- 

 dulous, or horizontal, solitary, or 2, or several ; style 

 1 ; stigma divided. Fruit drupaceous or capsular, 

 valvular, or indehiscent, with from 2 to 6 cells, which 

 are usually few-seeded when numerous, and many- 

 seeded only when two. Seeds with a papery testa, 

 wingless ; albumen none ; embryo straight ; cotyle- 

 dons large, plano-convex ; radicle short, next the 

 hilum. 



The only real differences that can be found between 

 these plants and Bignoniads consist in the pai'ie- 

 tal placentae of the former, their wingless or nearly 

 wingless seeds, which are in most cases definite, and 

 sometimes in their woody lobed placentce, which 

 spread and di^ade variously in the inside of the peri- 

 carp, so as to produce an apparently 4- or 6-ceUed 

 fruit out of a 1 -celled ovary. Sesanium may be con- 

 sidered a transition from the one to the other. From 

 Gesnerworts they are readily known by the texture of 

 their fruit, theu' large seeds, plano-convex cotyledons, 

 and very short radicle. Calabashes are distinguished 

 by their great succulent fruit and almond-like seeds 

 Endlicher rightly observes that Brown in forming 

 his Pedalinse {Prodr. 519.), does not combine with 



them Sesamum ; neither, however, does he explain pjg cccCXLVII. 



how they are to be distinguished ; but as usual, the 



extreme and studied conciseness of this learned man leaves his readers almost as much 

 in the dark as if the name of Sesamum had not been mentioned. 



It is not a Httle remarkable that such observers as De Candolle {Prodr. 8. 249.) and 

 Endheher {Linncea, vii. p. 8.) should suppose the fruit of this Order to be formed out of 

 5 or 4 carpels, a statement entirely opposed to both theory and fact. It is really (.-(im- 

 posed of two anterior and posterior carpels, exactly as that of the other Orders in the 

 present Alliance, It is doubtless true that Mai-tynia has been described as having 



Fig. CCCCXLVI.— Sesamum indicum. 1. a ripe fruit; 2. one of its halves ; 3. a seed ; 4. across 

 section of it. . .. „ ^. , •» 



Fig. CCCCXLVII.— Martynia lutea. 1. a tlower ; 2. tlie pistil ; 3. a section of its ovarj-. 



3 



