454 DICOTYLEDONES. 



gamosepalous, corolla absent. The stamens are divided to the 

 base, so that each filament bears a bilocular anther. The style is 

 free, deeply cleft. The terminal flower has 2 bracteoles, 4 sepals, 

 4 stamens, cleft to the base, and a 4-locular ovary. The bracts 

 of the lateral flowers are displaced on the flower-stalk, as in 

 Chrysosplenium, and united with the 2 bracteoles into a kind of 

 3-leaved involucre; these flowers have 5 sepals, 5 split stamens 

 with 2-locular anthers, and a 5-locular ovary. 1 pendulous ovule 

 in each loculus. Fruit a drupe, green-coloured, with 1-5 stones. 

 This plant, which would perhaps be best placed in a special order, 

 has also been classed with the Araliaceaa and Caprifoliaceae. 



The following are also allied to this order : E<calloniacece (arborescent plants 

 with simple, scattered, leathery leaves), Cunoniacece (arborescent with opposite 

 leaves), CephaJotacetf (with pitcher-like, insect-catching leaves ; Australia ; 

 Fig. 489) and JFrancoacece. These have respectively 85, 107, 1 and 3 species. 



Order 3. Ribesiaceae (Currants). 5-stamened Saxifragaceee 

 with epigynous flowers. Moderately sized shrubs with scattered, 



490. 491. 49?. 



FIGS. 490-492. Ribes rubrum. 



FIG. 4-90. Floral diagram. FIG. 491. Flower in longitudinal section. 



FIG. 492. Seeds in longitudinal section. 



stalked and palminerved, and generally palmilobed leaves, with a 

 large leaf-sheath. The flowers (Figs. 490, 491), most frequently 

 borne in racemes, are regular, epigynous, and have often, above the 

 ovary, a cup- or bell-shaped, or tubular prolongation of the recep- 

 tacle, on which the sepals, petals and stamens are situated; they 

 have 5 sepals (often large, coloured), 5 small, free petals, only 5 

 stamens (opposite the sepals) and a S-carpellate gynoeceum with a 

 unilocular ovary and 2 parietal placentae bearing many ovules. The 

 fruit is a berry, whose seeds have a fleshy and juicy outer covering 

 (Fig. 492). In some species, for example Ribes grossularia, there is found 

 an inibrancued, or a 3-5-branched spine, very closely resembling the spiny 

 leaves of the Berberis, but which, however, are emergences springing from the 

 base of the petiole. Ribes has two kinds of branches : long-brauches and 



