112. PODOSTEMONACEM. 



Perianth 5-6-merous, cyclic or acyclic, 3 outer tepals in fruit dry 

 accrescent forming wings. Stamens 7-9 connate at base into a ring 

 with short teeth between the filaments. Ovary 3-gonous with 3 free 

 styles and capitate papillose stigmas. Ovule on a long funicle, at 

 first pendulous, subsequently erect. Nut 3-angular. 



1. A. leptopus, HooTc. db Am. Sandwich Island Creeper. 



A beautiful climber, woody below, with ovate cordate or deltoid 

 somewhat rugose leaves and beautiful pink or white flowers in 

 panicled racemes. 



Commonly cultivated. Fl. r.s. and c.s. Native of Mexico. 



4. MUEHLENBECKIA, Meissn. 



Shrubs or undershrubs, in our species with compressed soon leafless 

 green branches and small caducous fleshy leaves, nodes with a stipulary 

 line. Flowers polygamous. Perianth deeply 5-fid, more or less fleshy 

 in fruit. Stamens 8-9, reduced to staminodes or in the female. 

 Ovary 3-gonous with 3 often very short styles and broad lobed or 

 fimbriate stigmas. 



1. M. platyclada, Meissn. 



An interesting shrub with all the branchlets converted into phyllo- 

 clades but bearing in the rains small rather fleshy rhomboid leaves. 

 Flowers green and white small in clusters at the nodes. Fruits (in- 

 cluding the fleshy perianth) baccate. 



Frequently cultivated. Native of the Solomon Islands. 



FAM. 112. PODOSTEMONACEiE. 



Aquatics, sometimes moss-like, growing on stones in tropical 

 streams. Stem almost always dorsiventral, branched with leaves 

 or with these confluent into thalloid or frondose laminae. Leaves 

 when differentiated simple distichous, sessile or stalked, generally 

 with a sheath which may be stipuliform. Flowers mostly terminal, 

 often in a many-fld. scape or dichasial shoot-system, naked or arising 

 from a sheath, mostly 2-sexual, sometimes 1 -sexual or dioecious. 

 Perianth usually reduced to small ovate or linear scales or altogether 

 absent in which case the young flower entirely enclosed in a spathe 

 (spathella). Stamens hypogynous, 1-many, whorled, or sometimes 

 perigynous, free or connate. Anthers with vertical dehiscence. 

 Ovary free, sessile or stalked, 1-3-celled, with a stout central placenta 

 and very thin septa. Styles 2-3 or one and columnar ; stigmas 2-3 

 or one capitate. Ovules many anatropous, axile (only in one genus 

 parietal). Fruit capsular, septicidal or septifragal, valves 2-3. Seeds 

 many minute with mucilaginous testa and no albumen. Embryo 

 straight, radicle inferior. 



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