368 VARIOUS PLANT GROUPS 
no special peculiarities. In lindens, however, the lowermost 
bract of the flower-cluster is large, forming a sort of involucre, 
and adheres for a considerable distance to the peduncle. 
Jute flowers, which have the stamens in two whorls of five 
each, thus conforming to the numerical plan of the other 
floral organs, afford the simplest condition. In other species 
the stamens appear to be indefinite in number, but close 
examination would show them to be grouped into five clus- 
ters opposite the five petals. Each cluster is taken to repre- 
sent the branches of a single one of the inner whorl of stamens, 
in much the same way that a pair of long stamens in the 
mustard family represent, as we have seen (section 110), a 
single branched stamen. 
The fact that the stamen-groups are opposite the petals (hence 
regarded as being of the inner stamen whorl) is expressed by placing 
the sign || between P and FA. 
Stamens in five clusters are said to be pentadelphous.* 
The stamens of the linden are always pentadelphous, and 
sometimes each cluster includes a staminode to which the 
anther-bearing filaments are coalescent. Throughout the 
family two pollen-sacs are borne by each filament which, 
however, divides more or less at the tip into a short stalk 
for each sac. 
The fruit of jute is a capsule dehiscing by dorsal sutures 
into valves attached to the radial partitions. Such dehiscence 
is called loculicidal.2. In lindens only one of the five carpels 
ripens, and commonly only one of the seeds which it contains. 
The pericarp becomes somewhat drupaceous so that the 
product of each flower resembles a small round almond. But 
a cluster of these nut-like fruitlets is formed by each in- 
florescence, and this cluster, borne on a common peduncle 
to which the bract still adheres, separates at maturity as a 
whole from the tree. The dry bract serves excellently as a 
1 Pen’’-ta-del’/phous < Gr. pente, five. FA ~ + 5. 
2 Loc’u-li-ci’’dal < L. loculus, a compartment; cedere, cut, because 
it is as if each compartment were cut into, so that in cross-section each 
division has a form something like the sign |. which is used to distin- 
guish this type of capsule in the formula of Corchorus. 
