612 



PART III. — THE CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS. 



Hollyhock, and A. officinalis is the Marsh-mallow : several species of Malva are 

 indigenous, M. sylvestris, rotundifoUa, and moschata : Gossypium herbaceum 

 (with the vars. religiosuvi and hirsutum) and G. arhoreum in Egypt and the East 

 Indies, and G. harhadense (with var. peruvianum) in America, yield Cotton, 

 which consists of the long hairs on the testa of the seed. 



SEEIES II.— DISCIFLOKiE. 



Flowers typically eucyclic and generally pentamerons, often 

 obdiplostemonous : sepals free or coherent: petals in a single whorl: 

 stamens usually definite, and hypogynous: a disc is usually present: 

 gynaeceum generally syncarpous. 



Cohort I. Geraniales. Flowers usually pentamerous through- 

 out ; formula X5, (75, 1 A^ + 5, G''-* ; generally obdiplostemonous : 



the carpels are opposite to the petals : 

 ovary usually 5-locular, with 1 or 2 

 suspended ovules ; the micro pyle is 

 directed inwards : disc various or 

 wanting. 



Order 1. GERANiACEiE. Disc usually 

 represented by a gland at the base of 

 and outside each of the antisepaloas 

 stamens : flowers usually actinomor- 

 phic : stamens connate at the base : 

 the carpels are prolonged into a car- 

 pophore (Fig. 414 A a) ; two ovules in 

 each loculus ; the fruit is septicidal 

 from below upwards, the awns of the 

 separating carpels (cocci) rolling up 

 (Fig. 414 B). Seed devoid of endo- 

 sperm. Herbs; leaves simple, stipu- 

 late. 



B 



Fig. 414.— Fruit of Geranium. A 

 Before, B after dehiscence ; s pe- 

 dicel ; / loculi of the ovary ; o in B 

 the awn ; n stigma ; a and 6 carpo« 

 phore. (Mag.) 



Geranium has 10 stamens : in most species 

 the seed is expelled on the sudden rolling up 

 of the awn : Geranium pratense, sylvaticum, 

 sanguineum, columhimtvi, and other species, the Crane's-bills, are wild in Eng- 

 land; G. Bohertianum, Herb-Robert, is universally distributed. Erodium, the 

 Stork's-bill, has the 5 stamens which are opposite to the petals transformed 

 into staminodes ; E. cicntarium is common in waste places. Pelargonium, in 

 many varieties, is a well-known garden-plant : the flowers are irregular and 

 dorsiventral ; the disc is absent, but the posterior sepal is provided with a 

 glandular spur which adheres to the pedicel. The cocci of Erodium and 

 Pelargonium are indehiscent, and are forced into the ground by the movement 

 of the hygroscopic awn. 



