568 OX SEEDLINGS 



TRIBE III. CANNED. 



The fruit is a three-celled capsule, with its surface warty 

 or beset with weak prickles. The seeds are roundish with a 

 straight embryo lying in the hard, very tough, white perisperm. 

 There is no endosperm. The absorbent organ of Canna is 

 club-shaped, embedded in the perisperm and separated by a 

 plain constriction from the embryo proper. The latter con- 

 sists of a sheath-like cotyledon surrounding the very well- 

 developed plumule, in which several involute leaves can be 

 distinguished, and a somewhat obliquely placed cone-shaped 

 radicle forming the apex of the whole. There is no stopper 

 in the seed-coat indicating the future point of exit of the 

 radicle, but at the spot towards which this is directed the 

 hard layer of palisade sclerome cells is interrupted by a sickle- 

 shaped opening, where the testa subsequently splits. 



The epidermis of the sucker consists of a layer of elongated 

 palisade- cells. The process of germination resembles that of 

 the Zingiberese. The neck of the embryo elongates consider- 

 ably, while the vegetative portion emerges from the testa 

 and develops root and shoot system outside. The elongated 

 neck-portion remains attached to the back of the cotyledonary 

 sheath till the sucker has exhausted the nutriment contained 

 in the perisperm. 



TRIBE IV. MUSE.E. 



The fruit is here a berry (Musa), sometimes fleshy as in M. 

 Sapientum (the Banana), sometimes dry and almost leathery 

 as in M. Ensete, or a three-celled capsule, dehiscing septicidally 

 in Heliconia into three one-seeded portions, while in Bavenala 

 and Strelitzia it is many-seeded with loculicidal dehiscence. 

 The seed in Musa Ensete has a very large broad hilum, 

 corresponding to an orbicular depression of the seed-coat. The 

 seeds of Strelitzia are surrounded at the base with a bilobed 

 woolly mantle. In Eavenala madagascariensis (the Travellers' 

 tree) a sky-blue, or sometimes red, scutiform aril with fimbri- 

 ated edges envelops the seed. Endosperm is absent, but a 

 quantity of mealy, white, or yellowish-white perisperm takes 



