21)2 LXXXV. ASCLEPIADE.E (bROWN). 



adjacent anthers ; when granular, each granule is formed of 4 pollen- 

 grains united together, and, on the dehiscence of the anthers, the whole 

 is loosely contained in the horny, spoon- trumpet- or trowel-shaped or 

 bifid pollen-carriers. Pistil superior, formed of 2, 1 -celled, many- 

 ovuled (very rarely 1-ovuled) carpels, free below, but with their styles 

 united above and dilated into a pentagonal disk, which is flat or 

 depressed, with or without a small, central, simple or bilobed apiculus, 

 or convex or pyramidal or prolonged into a short or long beak of 

 variable form (termed the apical part of the style in the following 

 descriptions), which is entire, bilobed, bifid, or dilated at the apex, or 

 rarely there arises from the disk 2, 5 or 7 style-like processes. On the 

 angles of the dilated part of the style are seated the pollen-carriers, 

 and immediately beneath them behind the fissures between the anther- 

 wings are the 5 stigmatic cavities. Ovules numerous or very rarely few 

 or solitary, anatropous, pendulous, imbricate in several series on the 

 projecting placenta. Fruit of two parallel or divaricate follicles, or by 

 abortion of one follicle, variable in form, smooth, echinate or winged, 

 dehiscing by the ventral suture and usually liberating the placenta. 

 Seeds usually numerous, very rarely few or solitary, imbricate, flat or 

 cochleate usually with a broad or narrow margin, crowned with a tuft 

 of long silky hairs or rarely densely fringed all round with them, very 

 rarely without a tuft of hairs at one end ; testa rather thick or sub- 

 crustaceous ; albumen thin or none ; embryo straight, nearly or quite 

 filling the seed ; cotyledons flat ; radicle superior. — Herbs or shrubs 

 often with a tuberous rootstock or fleshy roots. Juice milky or 

 watery. Stems simple or branched, often twining, sometimes succulent 

 and leafless, with terete or angular branches, which are often toothed 

 or spiny at the angles. Leaves opposite or whorled, rarely alternate, 

 thin or fleshy. Flowers very variable in size and form, solitary or 

 few or many together, in umbels, umbel-like cymes, fascicles, or 

 racemes, axillary, lateral betw^een the bases of the leaves, or terminal. 



A large Order of over 1800 species widely spread throughout the Tropical and 

 Subtropical regions of the earth, a few in the Temperate regions. 



This Order is well marked by the peculiar structure of its pollen apparatus, 

 coronal appendages and stigma, but in other characters it is similar to Apocynacece. 

 In having the pollen contents of each anther-cell combined into a waxy mass and 

 united by caudicles in pairs to the pollen-carriers, it is unique among Dicotyledonous 

 orders, and in this character resembles the Orchidece among Monocotyledons. 

 The stigmas are also very remarkable, not only are there 5 stigmas or rather 

 stigmatic points, whiUt there are only 2 carpels, but they are completely hidden 

 from view behind the anther-wings and can only be seen by careful dissection or by 

 making transverse sections of the dilated part of the style ; the only openings to the 

 stigmas are the 5 nari'ow fissures formed by the contiguous anther-wings (the rigid 

 horny margins of the anthers). No other Order has a similar structure, a detailed 

 account of which and of the manner of fertilisation will be found in the Trans-, 

 actions of the Linnean Society, ser. 2, Bot. ii. 75 and 173, tt. 16, 24-26. 



The Order is of no great importance economically, many species are poisonous, 

 some are medicinal and the tubers of several are greedily eaten by the natives, as are 

 likewise the fleshy stems of the tribe StapeliecB. Several species have tough fibres 

 thit might be of economic use. The Asclepiadecs are a very difficult group to 



