ROSALES.] 



DRUPACE^. 



557 



Order CCX. DRUPACEjE.— Almondworts. 



Amygdaleae, Juss. Gen. 340. a § o/Rosaceae (1789) ; Endl. Gen. cclxxiii.; Wight Illustr. 1. 201. 

 paceae, DC. Fl. Frangaise, 4. 479. (1805) j Prodr. 2. 529. a § 



Diagnosis. — Rosal Exogens, xoith polypetaloiis regular flowers y a solitary carpel whose style 

 proceeds from the apex, and a drupaceoiis fruit. 



Trees or shrubs. Leaves simple, alternate, usually glandular towards the base ; 

 stipules simple, mostly glandular. Flowers white or pink, in umbels or single. Calyx 



1 L~^ 



Fig. CCCLXXVI. 



Fig. CCCLXXVn. 



5-toothed, deciduous, lined with a disk ; the fifth lobe next the axis. Petals 5, perigj-- 

 nous. Stamens 20, or thereabouts, arismg from the throat of the calyx, in aestivation 

 curved inwards ; anthers innate, 2-celled, bursting longitudinally. Ovary superior, 

 sohtary, simple, 1 -celled ; ovules 2, suspended ; styles terminal, with a furrow on one 

 side, terminating in a reuiform stigma ; ovules anatropal. Fruit a drupe, with the 

 putamen sometimes separating spontaneously from the sarcocai'p. Seeds mostly soli- 

 tary, suspended. Embryo sti'aight, with the radicle pointing to the hilimi ; cotyledons 

 thick, plano-convex ; albumen none. 



This Order is distinguished from Roseworts and Appleworts by the pistil being a 

 sohtary, simple carpel, changing when ripe into a drupe, the bark yielduig gum, and 

 by the more general presence of hydrocyanic acid ; from Leguminous plants by the lat- 

 ter character, and also by their regidar petals and stamens, and especially by the odd 

 segment of the 5-lobed calyx of that Order being inferior, not superior ; from Chryso- 

 balans, by the terminal styles and regular petals and stamens. I have seen a monstrous 

 Plum with an indefinite number of ovaries arismg irregularly from the tube of the 

 calyx, and therefore exhibitmg a tendency, on the part of this Order, to assume one of 

 the distinguisliing characters of Roseworts. It is not a little remarkable that here, 

 where we have an approach to the structm'e of Mimosese in Legummous plante, 

 we have a resemblance to the property possessed by that Sub-order, of yielding gum in 

 the bark ; the pecuhar astringency of some species is also analogous to that of Acacia 

 Catechu and the Uke. 



Natives exclusively of the northern hemisphere, where they are found m cold or 

 temperate climates. One species, Cerasus occidentahs, is a native of the West Indies ; 

 some Plums occur in the woods of Brazil ; a kind of Almond, Amygdalus microphyUa, 



Fig. CCCLXXVI. — Cerasus communis. 

 Fig. CCCLXXVII.— Prunus domestica. 

 ing the position of the seed. 



1. a section of its flower. 



1. a section of its drupe ; 2. a section of the endocarp, show - 



