266 ON SEEDLINGS 



They are corrugate or plicate in Pterospermum, and the seeds 

 are produced into a wing on the top. The seeds are exalbu- 

 minous in Theobroma, and the cotyledons are lobed and cor- 

 rugate. Here also may be placed Guazuma, with albuminous 

 seeds, and a slightly curved embryo with foliaceous, inflexed- 

 plicate cotyledons. 



A fifth very distinct type is represented by Hermannia 

 and Mahernia, which have reniform albuminous seeds, with 

 a curved embryo, oblong cotyledons, and the radicle close to 

 the hilum. Taking Pentapetes phoanicea as a type, we find 

 that all of the tribe Dombeyeae agree with it in having albu- 

 minous seeds, foliaceous, bipartite cotyledons, and the rad- 

 icle close to the hilum. The cotyledons are folded and con- 

 torted in Cheirolaena, Trochetia, Pentapetes, and Melhania ; 

 they are rarely flat. It seems probable that the species of 

 Euizia have also bipartite cotyledons. The fruit of Pentapetes 

 phcenicea is a crustaceous capsule, shortly globose-oblong, 

 five-celled, many-seeded, with the anatropous seeds arranged 

 horizontally in two dense rows ; dehiscing loculicidally with 

 the valves separating from the plumose midrib. The seed is 

 obovoid, bluntly trigonous or variously angled, and minutely 

 reticulated, with the raphe on the upper side, 2*5 mm. long, 

 2 mm. wide, and as thick. The endosperm is copious, forming 

 a white layer round the inner face of the seed, while all the 

 rest lying in the middle of the seed and between the folds of 

 the embryo is transparent and mucilaginous, swelling up in 

 water when it becomes white. 



The embryo is large, folded, or doubled upon itself a 

 short way above the insertion of the cotyledons. The 

 cotyledons grow till they reach the apex of the seed, then 

 they first become concave on the side towards the raphe (upper 

 side of the horizontal seed), then strongly folded in the same 

 direction. Growth at the apex is then arrested for want of 

 space, but the embryo still grows, and attains a comparatively 

 large size by lateral extension of the cotyledons, each forming 

 two long lobes, which extend round the sides of the seed some- 

 times in one direction sometimes in the other, so that when 

 mature the cotyledons are deeply bipartite with oblong, 

 obtuse lobes. They are seven-nerved, the midrib being very 



