326 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



Another well-known plant is PUNICA GRANATUM, L. 

 whose fruit the Pomegranate, is also a berry. The 

 epicarp or outer skin of the fruit is very tough, and 

 the outer part of the seed is fleshy. In this flower 

 we can see very well the characteristic way in which 

 the filaments of the stamens are curled inwards before 

 the flower is fully open, the inferior ovary, and on 

 the fruit the crown formed of the persistent calyx. 

 Changes take place in the ovary as it ripens into 

 the fruit, whereby the seeds come to be borne not only 

 on the central axis, or inner angles of the cells, but 

 also on other parts of the cells. In other respects, 

 however, in the opposite exstipulate, entire leaves, the 

 inferior ovary, single style, round petals and curled- 

 up stamens, the plant closely resembles the other 

 MYRTACE.E. 



CHARACTERS OF THE MYRTACE^ 



The characteristics of the family MYRTACE^E are 

 now clear. They are nearly all trees or shrubs and 

 with the solitary exception of the older trees of 

 EUCALYPTUS, they have all got opposite, simple, entire 

 leaves. In most the leaves are scented, the smell 

 being due to drops of oil in special glands, which 

 when the leaf is held up against the light, appear 

 as small white dots (cf. the RUTACE^:). The flowers 

 are regular and have an inferior ovary, of one or two 

 sometimes more cells. The sepals (or calyx lobes) 

 are usually small, four or five in number, the petals 

 roundish, four or five, and in many cases fall off 

 soon after the flower has opened. The stamens are 

 very numerous, have long sometimes red coloured, 



