364 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



the corolla. Anthers 5, free or united. Ovary inferior, or 

 half inferior, 2 -5 -celled. Axile placentation and ovules many. 

 Style simple, stigmas as many as the carpels. Fruit a capsule 

 or berry. Leaves alternate, exstipulate. 



The flowers are very protandrous, and the style has the pollen shed 

 upon it, where it is held by a ring of hairs just below the stigma. In 

 many cases the stigmas turn back and touch the pollen of their own 

 flowers, and so self-fertilization results. The flowers show interesting 

 transitions to Compositce, to which the order is related. 



Fig. 346. — Lobelia. I. Flowering shoot. II. Stamens with syngenesious 

 anthers closed over stigmas in bud. III. Style and addressed stigmas from II. 

 IV. Diagram of flower. V. Transverse section of fruit. (From Henslow's 

 " South African Flowering Plants".) 



A. Corolla zygomorphic with a split tube ; anthers united — 

 Lobelia. — The flowers are twisted on their axis so that 



