Asclepiadaceae. 739 
quently 5 or more small glands at the base inside. Corolla regular, 
with 5 teeth or lobes, contorted or valvate in the bud, with or 
without scales or appendages in the throat alternating with the 
lobes. Stamens 5, inserted at the base or near the base of the 
corolla, the filaments short, connate or rarely free, the anthers always 
connate in a tube (called gynostegium) enclosing the style; anthers 
2-celled, or by the subdivision of the cells more or less completely 
4-celled; the cells opening inwards, the connectivum produced into 
a short, truncate or rarely acute appendage, or more frequently 
terminating in an inflexed membrane; corona consisting of variously 
shaped glandular membranous or fleshy appendages attached to the 
back of the filaments or anthers, sometimes united in a cup or ring, 
quite deficient in a few genera: pollen consolidated into 1 or 2 
masses in each cell of the ovary, attached (when the anther opens) 
in pairs or in fours (1 or 2 from each of the adjoining anthers) 
to small processes of the stigma placed between the anthers, and 
ultimately detached from the stigma and carrying off the pollen- 
masses. Ovary of 2 distinct carpels, with several usually numerous 
ovules attached to the inner angle; styles united immediately above 
the ovary, and thickened within the anthers into an angular body, 
usually called the stigma, although not wholly stigmatic; the summit 
in the centre either truncate or more or less protruding in a conical 
or elongated, beak-like, entire or 2-lobed process. Fruit of 2 follicles, 
or frequently 1 only from the abortion of the other carpel. Seeds 
usually pendulous, with a long silky tuft of hairs or coma at the 
hilum, compressed, often, bordered; testa usually brown, smooth or 
rough; albumen thin; embryo straight; cotyledons foliaceous; radicle 
short, superior. — Herbs, with a perennial, sometimes tuberous 
rootstock, or more or less woody stock, or shrubs or very rarely 
trees. Stems or branches frequently twining; juice usually milky. 
Leaves almost always opposite, entire; stipules none or very obscure. 
Flowers often small, in racemes of cymes often reduced to umbels, 
axillary or more frequently on one side of the branch between the 
petioles. Bracts small, at the base of the branches and pedicels; 
bracteoles on the pedicels none or very rare and small. 
Like Apocynaceae, the Order is abundantly dispersed over the tropical 
regions of both the New and the Old World, and represented by a few extra- 
tropical species in the southern as well as the northern hemisphere, but does 
not extend to arctic or high alpine regions. The Order is nearly allied to 
Apocynaceae, but, with a somewhat different habit, it is neatly distinguished 
by the definite pollen-masses, and their peculiar adherence to bodies detached 
from the style. In determining the species of this Order, it is absolutely 
necessary that the number and position (pendulous horizontal or erect) of 
these pollen-masses should be carefully studied, and secondly that the con- 
AT* 
