360 



ON SEEDLINGS 



becoming less as the embryo develops, and finally disappearing when 

 the seed approaches maturity. 



Embryo straight in the young condition, plano-convex, colourless, 

 fleshy ; cotyledons at an early stage transversely oval, entire, gradu- 

 ally becoming orbicular or occasionally angled. 



Eranthemum leuconeurnm, Fisch. (fig. 580). 



Ovary two-celled, each cell two-ovuled ; ovules erect, anatropous ; 

 radicle inferior. 



Fruit a capsule, oblong, cuspidately acute, stipitate, dorsally 

 compressed, pubescent with incurved hairs and tipped with the 

 persistent style, two-celled, and four-seeded or fewer by abortion, 



FIG. 580. Eranthemum leuconeurum, x 12. A, longitudinal section 

 of seed : Au, auricle ; R, radicle ; H, hilar process ; T, testa. B, trans- 

 verse section of seed ; Cs, cotyledons. 



dehiscing loculicidally and elastically when mature, scattering the 

 seeds ; retinacula produced beyond the seed into subulate, acute 

 points, and curved upwards. 



Seed suborbicular, notched at the base, much compressed by 

 the dorsal flattening of the capsule, lying on the retinaculum 

 in the broader way of the cell, somewhat unequal at the base, with 

 the point containing the radicle slightly longer and extending 

 towards the side of the capsule ; testa rather thin, reticulated or 

 raised into irregular, wavy, projecting, slender ridges; raphe and 

 chalaza inconspicuous ; hilum and micropyle basal, inferior, con- 

 tiguous but separated by a shaUow notch ; hilum surrounded on 

 two sides by small auricles. 



Endosperm in the mature seed represented by a thin white, easily 

 separable film. 



Embryo large, filling the seed to which it conforms, straight, 



