COXVOLVULACE.-E 267 



COXVOLVULACE.E. 



Benth. et Hook. Gen. PL ii. 865. 



Fruit and Seed. The ovary is superior and syncarpous, 

 consisting usually of two carpels, rarely of three, five, or ten, 

 and cohering so as to form as many cells as there are carpels. 

 In some cases there are spurious septa interposed dividing 

 the ovary into as many cells as there are ovules. The ovary 

 is generally entire, but in rarer cases is divided into distinct 

 erect lobes. The ovules are usually geminate in each cell, 

 rarely one or four, sessile, basal, erect from the inner angle of 

 each cell, anatropous or nearly so. The fruit is generally 

 entire and globose, rarely oblong or conical, fleshy, baccate, 

 pulpy and indehiscent, or capsular as in the typical genus, 

 with hardened, crustaceous or membranous walls, indehiscent 

 or dehiscing by two to four valves, rarely bursting irregularly 

 or transversely operculate. In other cases the fruit is divided 

 into two to many lobes, each piece constituting an indehiscent 

 one-seeded nutlet ; or it may be divided into as many cells as 

 there are seeds when the latter are numerous. The seeds are 

 as numerous as the ovules or fewer by abortion, basal from 

 the inner angles of the cells and erect. When solitary they 

 conform to the cavity of the fruit, but when there are two or 

 more they become angled by mutual compressure. The testa is 

 membranous or crustaceous, rarely fleshy and smooth, villous 

 or woolly. Endosperm is present and fleshy or more usually 

 forms a thin layer occupying the space between the various 

 parts of the embryo. The latter is large and variously folded 

 with thin and foliaceous cotyledons which are entire, emargin- 

 ate, bifid or bipartite. More rarely the embryo is terete, curved 

 and subspherical, or spiral with elongated semiterete or 

 obsolete cotyledons. The radicle is inferior, directed towards 

 the hilum and often more or less curved round the dorsal 

 aspect of the seed. An exceptional case occurs in Nephro- 

 phyllum where the embryo is terete and much curved, with 

 spiral cotyledons scarcely wider than the radicle. In the 

 same category Nolana, Alona, and Dolia may be placed. The 



