676 Myrtaceae. 
the lower flowers. Bracteoles 2 at the base of or on the pedicel, 
sometimes very small or abortive, and often exceedingly deciduous. 
The fleshy-fruited genera of the Order are widely spread over the 
tropical regions both of the New and the Old World, including many of the 
largest forest trees. 
373. Eucalyptus Linn. 
Calyx-tube obconical campanulate or oblong, adnate to the ovary 
at the base or rarely to the top, truncate and entire after the falling 
off of the operculum or with 4 minute teeth; the orifice closed by 
a hemispherical conical or elongated operculum covering the stamens 
in the bud and falling off entire when the stamens expand, this 
operculum usually simple (formed of the concrete petals?), thin or 
more frequently thick, fleshy or woody, the veins longitudinal, 
numerous and parallel or rarely anastomosing, the separation from 
the calyx-tube usually but not always marked in the bud by a distinet 
line; there is also frequently in the very young bud a very thin 
membranous external operculum more continuous with the calyx- 
tube and very rarely this external one persists nearly as long as 
the internal one and is as thick or nearly so. Stamens numerous, 
in several series, free or very rarely very shortly united at the base 
into 4 clusters; anthers versatile or attached at or close to the base, 
the cells parallel and distinct or divergent and confluent at the 
apex, opening in longitudinal slits or rarely in terminal pores, the 
connective often thickened into a small gland either separating the 
cells or behind them when they are contiguous. Ovary inferior, 
the summit glabrous, flat, convex or conical, 3—6-celled, with 
numerous ovules in each cell, in 2—4 rows, on an adnate or oblong 
and peltate axile placenta; style subulate or rarely almost clavate, 
with a small truncate capitate or rarely peltate stigma. Fruit 
consisting of the more or less enlarged tr uncate calyx-tube enclosing 
the capsule, usually of a hard and woody texture and interspersed 
with resinous receptacles, the persistent disk usually thin and lining 
the orifice of the calyx-tube when the capsule is deeply sunk: 
concave, horizontal, convex, or conically projecting, and more or 
less contracting the orifice when the capsule is not much shorter 
than, as long as, or longer than the calyx-tube; the capsule always 
adnate to the calyx-tube although often readily separable from it 
when quite ripe and dry, very rarely protruding from the orifice 
left by the disk before maturity, but opening at the apex in as 
many valves as there are cells, which often protrude, especially 
when acuminate by the persistent and split base of the style. 
Seeds for the greater part abortive but more or less enlarged, 
variously shaped and of a hard apparently uniform texture, one or 
