410 ON SEEDLINGS 



ILLECEBRACE.E. 



Benth. et Hook. Gen. PL iii. 12. 



Fruit and Seed. The ovary is superior, ovoid, or globose, 

 one-celled, with sometimes a slender thread running through 

 it, and contains one, rarely two amphitropous, anatropous, 

 or semi-anatropous ovules, which are erect, pendulous, or in- 

 verted and suspended from a basal funicle. The fruit is a 

 utricle enclosed in the perianth, and is rarely nut-like, crus- 

 taceous, membranous, indehiscent, or torn at the base, and one- 

 seeded. The seed is erect or inverted, ovoid, clavate, orbicular 

 or lenticular. The testa is thinly membranous, without an 

 aril, enclosing a mealy or fleshy, copious or scanty endosperm. 

 The embryo is sometimes annular surrounding the endosperm 

 and has narrow cotyledons. The radicle is elongated and 

 incumbent, superior or inferior, sometimes dorsal and club- 

 shaped, straight or slightly incurved and closely applied to 

 the oblong cotyledons. 



The fruit of Corrigiola is a nut with a crustaceous pericarp, 

 and is globose or ovoid-trigonous. The cotyledons are narrow, 

 and the radicle is superior. In Achyronychia, Habrosia, and 

 Pollichia the ovary contains two or four ovules. 



The fruit of Herniaria is one-celled and one-seeded. The 

 seed is roundly obovoid or almost globular, basal, erect, and 

 anatropous or subanatropous. The embryo (fig. 605) is peri- 

 pheral to the endosperm and curved round one side of the 

 seed and across the top where the cotyledons form a sort 

 of a hook. The cotyledons are linear, semiterete, about the 

 same breadth and length as the radicle, and lie in the narrow 

 plane of the seed with their backs facing the hilum. The 

 ovule of Scleranthus annuus is also solitary but campylo- 

 tropous and suspended from a filiform basal funicle with the 

 hilum and micropyle superior. The embryo is peripheral lying 

 in the narrow way of the seed which it almost entirely 

 surrounds, with a short superior radicle and linear, semiterete 

 incumbent cotyledons facing the basal placenta. The cotyle- 

 dons are slightly broader than the radicle and about twice as 



