536 



MOEFNGACEjE. 



[HyPOGVNOUS EXOGKNS. 



Order CXV. MORINGACEvE — Moringads. 



Moringe*, R. Brown in Denham, V . 33. [1826) ; Bartl. Ord. Nat. 42S \. (1830) ^DccciisminAnn. Sc. N. 

 g S \ 4. 203. (1835) ; Endl.Gen. p. 1321. ; Meisn. Gen. p. 78.; Wight and Illustr. 1./. , «. 



Diagnosis — Yiolal Exogens, with a many-leaved calyx, perigynous j>etah and stains, 

 l-celled anthers, stipitate consolidated siliquose fruit, and exalbuminous seeds. 

 Trees with 2- 3- pinnated leaves, whose leaflets very readily drop off, and thin, decidu- 

 ous, coloured stipules. Flowers irregular, white, in loose panicles. Sepals 5, petaloid, 



nearly equal, deciduous; the tube lined 



with a fleshy disk; aestivation slightly 



imbricated. Petals 5, visibly unequal, the 



uppermost of which is ascending. Stamens 



8 or 10, arising from the top of a disk 



lining the tube of the calyx ; 5 opposite 



the sepals, sometimes sterile ; filaments 



slightly petaloid, callous and hairy at the 



base ; anthers simple, l-celled, with a 



thick convex connective. Ovary stipitate, 



superior, l-celled, with 3 parietal placentee 



bearing numerous suspended anatropal 



ovules ; style filiform, terminal, obliquely 



recurved ; stigma simple. Fruit a long 



pod-like capsule, with 3 valves, and only 



1 cell ; the valves bearing the seeds along 



their middle. Seeds numerous, half buried 



in the fungous substance of the valves, 



sometimes winged ; embryo amygdaloid, 



without albumen ; radicle straight, supe- 

 rior (turned to the hilum), very small ; 



cotyledons fleshy, plano-convex. 



This is a little group of small trees, with 



an appearance so peculiar that one hardly 



knows with what to compare them. It 



however seems generally admitted that 



they resemble some plants of the Legu- 

 • minous Order ; and it is to the vicmity of 



those that all Botanists, except myself, 

 seem agreed in referring them, moved 

 thereto by their pinnated leaves, with 

 glands between the leaflets, declinate de- 

 candrous perigynous stamens, and pod-like 

 fruit. De Candolle, who did not overlook 

 the anomalous structure of Moringa as a 

 Leguminous plant, accounted for the com- 

 pound nature of its fruit upon the suppo- 

 sition, that although unity of carpels is the 



normal structure of Leguminoste, yet the presence of more ovaries than 

 one, in a few instances in that Order, explained the constantly trilocular 

 state of that of Moringa. It has, however, always seemed to me that 

 the resemblance which Botanists have found with the Leguminous Order 

 are trifling, while the discrepancies are of the first importance. For ex- 

 ample, the habit of the plant consists in a doubly pinnated foliage, which 

 would do as well for Roseworts, or Citronworts, or Rueworts ; the 

 declinate stamens may be found in Rueworts, Milkworts, Capparids, 

 and many others ; and as to the pod-like form of the fruit, it is not 

 worth a thought. The objections are, that the sepals are of the same 

 texture as the petals, the anthers l-celled, the ovary composed of 3 car- 

 pels which have not the power of turning inward their sides so as to form 

 dissepiments, and that the attachment of the carpels is strictly parietal. 

 It is true that the latter circumstance will not be so much at variance 





Fig. CCXXIX.— 1. Moringa pterygosperma : 2. its fruit ; 3, the section of a flower of M. aptera ; 4. 

 its anther; 5. a section of its seed. -Wight and Decaime. 



