566 ON SEEDLINGS 



SCITAMINE^E. 



Benth. et Hook. Gen. PL iii. 636. 



Fruit and Seed. The ovary is inferior, three- celled or 

 one-celled by arrest, two cells being small and empty as in 

 Maranta, Stromanthe, Ctenanthe, Saranthe, Ischnosiphon and 

 Thalia ; rarely truly one-celled with three parietal placentas, as 

 in Mantisia, Globba, Guillainia and Hemiorchis, or two-celled 

 (Tapeinochilus). The ovules are solitary and erect from the 

 base in each cell (Heliconia), or indefinite in one to many 

 series on the axile, rarely parietal (Mantisia &c) placentas, 

 horizontal, or ascending, anatropous. The fruit is crowned 

 by the persistent calyx or naked, the whole perianth being 

 deciduous, and with the seed varies considerably in the four 

 well-marked tribes, often separated as distinct Orders, into 

 which the Scitaminese are divided. 



TRIBE I. ZINGIBEEE^E. 



The fruit where known is sometimes a loculicidally dehiscent 

 capsule, as in Eoscoea, Hedychium, and Costus. The wall of 

 the capsule is often leathery, but sometimes thin, and almost 

 membranous, and then usually bursts irregularly as in 

 Globba and Zingiber. In some genera (Elettaria, Amomum 

 and Alpinia) it is indehiscent and almost baccate. The 

 pericarp is usually smooth. The form of the fruit varies from 

 round to elongated or angular, in Burbidgea it takes the shape 

 of a long pod. The seeds are numerous, more or less spherical, 

 or conical, or angular, with a rounded side towards the peri- 

 carp. The testa is smooth and shiny, grey or brownish, some- 

 times red, more rarely is it wrinkled on the surface. It bounds 

 a starchy perisperm surrounding an albuminous endosperm, 

 inside which is the embryo. The latter, however, abuts on the 

 testa at the hilum, where the continuity of the seed-coat is 

 interrupted by a stopper. Tschirch l has recently shown that 



1 Die Saugorgane der Scitamineen-Samen,' in Mitth. Math. u. Naturwiss. 

 aus d. Sitz. der k. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, 1890, Heft 2. 



