884 Bignoniaceae. 
Ovary superior (very rarely inferior), sessile, 2- (rarely 1-), 3- or 
4-celled; cells often completely or incompletely divided by spurious 
septa; style filiform, slightly exceeding the anthers; stigma 2-lobed, 
lobes ovate to linear; placentas central; ovules 1 to many in each 
cell. Fruit very variable, dehiscent or indehiscent, often provided 
with spines, horns or wings. Seeds 1 to many in each cell, some- 
times winged, with a delicate or stout testa; albumen very thin. 
Embryo straight; cotyledons flat; radicle short. — Annual or perennial 
herbs, rarely shrubs or small trees, more or less covered with sessile 
mucilage-glanis (at least the younger parts). Leaves opposite or the 
upper ones alternate. Flowers mostly axillary and solitary, rarely in 
few- to many-flowered axillary and terminal inflorescences; pedicels 
usually with nectarial glands (modified flower-buds) at the base. 
Species about 60 in the tropics and the extra-tropical countries of the 
southern hemisphere of the Old World. 
507. Sesamum Linn. 
Calyx small or middle-sized, 5-partite, usually suboblique. 
Corolla obliquely campanulate; limb more or less oblique, obscurely 
2-labiate, lowest lobe usually distinctly longer than the others. 
Stamens subdidynamous, inserted low down in the corolla-tube, not 
conniving: filaments slender, filiform; anthers dorsifixed, cells parallel, 
dehiscing longitudinally to the base. Disk annular, equal. Ovary 
2-celled; cells divided by a spurious septum almost to the apex; 
ovules numerous, 1-seriate in each division. Capsule oblong, slightly 
compressed contrary to the septum, loculicidal towards the base, 
more or less beaked, without any lateral appendage at the apex. 
Seeds numerous, compressed, obovate. Annual or perennial, erect 
or procumbent herbs. Leaves membranous, sometimes rather firm, 
petioled or the upper ones subsessile, polymorphous. Flowers solitary in 
the axils of the leaves on mostly very short pedicels, pale pink to 
deep purple. 
Species about 18 in Tropical Africa, some extending to South Africa 
and India. 
1238. Sesamum indicum L. Spec. Plant. I (1753), p. 634. — 
Boiss. Flor. Or. IV, p. 8L. — Bot. Mag., tab. 1688. — Endl. Iconogr., 
tab. 70. — Aschers.-Schweinf. Ill. Flor. @Eg., p.106 no. 693. — 
Bernh. in Linnaea XVI, p.37. — Sickenberg. Contrib. Flor. d’Eg., 
p. 258. — DC. Prodrom. 1X, p. 250. — Sesamum orientale Linn. 
Spec. Plant. I, p. 634. — Lam. Ilustr. III, p. 82 tab. 528. — Sesamum 
edule Hort. ex Steud. Nom. ed. I, p.769. — Sesamum oleiferum 
Moench Meth., Supplem. p. 174. — Sesamum brasiliense Vell. Flor. 
