152 



ON SEEDLINGS 



ScMzopetalon Walkeri, Sims. 



Fruit a silicula, narrowly linear, subcompressed, two-celled, 

 many-seeded, dehiscent. 



Seeds parietal, in one row, globose, very small, pale yellow, often 

 with a bluish tinge ; micropyle and hilum punctiform, ventral, con- 

 tiguous ; raphe ventral. 



Endosperm absent. 



Embryo comparatively large, spirally convolute, and conforming 

 to the interior of the seed ; cotyledons bipartite with narrowly linear 

 or acicular segments, sometimes exhibiting regular spiral coils, 

 but often irregular and more or less irregularly twisted amongst 



FIG. IGl.Schizopetalon Walkeri. Nat. size. 



each other, one or two lobes inside the others ; radicle comparatively 

 large, and rather longer than the incumbent cotyledons, which have 

 their backs to the placenta. 



160, 161). 



Primary root slender, tapering, with very few lateral rootlets in 

 the young state. 



Hypocotyl tapering indistinguishably into the root. 



Cotyledons split almost to the very base, but sometimes, although 

 rarely, united (as in accompanying sketch) for 4-75 mm. at the base ; 

 segments filiform, blunt, glabrous, deep green, rather fleshy, 2 cm. 

 long. 



Stem annual, developed when about to flower. 



Leaves simple, pinnatifid, radical and cauline, alternate, exstipulate, 

 petiolate, stellately pubescent, rather fleshy, opaque green ; petioles 

 semiterete, flattened above or shallowly grooved, stellately pubescent. 



