382 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



{PILEA, PROCRIS, etc.), which are common enough on 

 the hills in shady places. 



In these the flowers are unisexual and small, and 

 arranged in various ways. The staminate flowers 

 have four sepals and standing opposite the sepals, 

 four stamens bent down in bud, and when the sepals 

 have opened, the stamens will at the slightest touch 

 spring up straight and scatter the pollen as a tiny 

 cloud of yellow dust. 



This arrangement of the stamens opposite the peri- 

 anth leaves and their ejection of the pollen by the 

 sudden straightening of the filaments, are very char- 

 acteristic of one large section of this family, which 

 differs also from the FICUS and ARTOCARPUS section 

 in having no latex. 



AMARYLLIDE^E 



Examples : 



CRINUM A-SIATICUM, L. This well-known plant is 

 commonly grown in gardens for the sake of its 

 beautiful large white flowers. It has no stem, the 

 leaves springing from an underground bulb. The leaf 

 has no separate stalk and blade, but consists of one 

 large lamina, three to four feet long, and as many 

 inches wide, along which run in addition to the 

 mid rib and parallel with it, a number of veins, not 

 branching as in most dicotyledonous leaves but lying 

 side by side and connected only by small transverse 

 veins. 



Flowers borne in an irregular umbel on a thick 

 leafless stalk (scape), enclosed at first by a thin 



