as 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PL.iNTS. 



is most remarkable in the arrangement of these is, that those super- 

 posed to the five petals are external to those superposed to the sepals, 

 enfolding and hiding thcin entirely in the bud.' ^Moreover, the sepals 

 are unequal and quincuncial.the petals imbricated, the anthers introrse, 

 dehiscing by two longitudinal" clefts, as in Candollea. The carpels, 

 two in number, are free. The ovary contains one or two anatropous 

 ascending ovules ; the micropyle is originally^ turned inwards, and 

 even in the flower the umbilicus is surrounded by a rudiment of 

 the arillary collar. The style, grooved the whole length of its internal 



angle, tapers upwards to a point. 

 A. salicifolla is a small suffrutescent 

 l^lant growingin marshy soils, wherein 

 its woody stock burrows, covered 

 with numerous adventitious roots. 

 The slender branches bear alternate, 

 very unequal leaves, placed close 

 together on the axis of a short branch 

 which ends in a nearly sessile flower, 

 resemble the last leaves, the spiral of which they 



Adrastaa salicifulia. 



Fig. 125. 



Longitudiiuil section of flower. 



The sepals 

 continue. 



Pachynema* of the same country as Adrastaa, has its flowers (figs. 

 1 2G, 127) similarly organized. But of the stamens only seven or eight 

 are fertile. Their small anthers are two-celled and introrse ; the 

 filaments supporting them are dilated from above downwards to 

 form a kind of pyramid. The two innermost stamens are reduced 

 to these filaments, each bearing at the tip a sterile gland instead of 



' On this account we have not chosen Adrastcea 

 as tlie first type of the DiUeniacpcc, and also hc- 

 utUHcthe exiiet alteniiition of these stamens with 

 one anotlier, and their exact superposition to the 

 pieces of the calyx and corolhi do not always 

 exist. Hence we may conclude, as we have else- 

 where Niid {Adiiimonia, vi. 2(;5), "that here wo 

 have not to deal with the usual androceal whorls 

 found in re|,'ularly di|)l()stemonou8 flowers." The 

 study of the evolution o( the andnncum will alone 

 reveal its true symmetry. Hut there is no doulit 

 that the stamens are not, as Kkntham i^ 

 IIOUKKR assert, aymplui m-rie niiunlilfr jieri- 

 phcr'wa." Some are so much internal to the 

 others, that in the hud they are not seen on re- 

 movinif the corolla. 



• These clefts ht'yin near the tup of the 



anthers ; those of the two cells approach closely 

 at the summit, hut without coalescinjj. The 

 filament, flattened and hroad, is almost peta- 

 loid; the connective is continuous «ilh it, 

 and the anther cells arc so applie<l on the inner 

 face that nothing of them is seen on the 

 dorsum. 



* When there is hut one, as it develojies it 

 undergoes a more or less decided twisting, so as 

 to turn the uiicrop^lo sideways, or even out- 

 wards. 



* K. IlKOWN, in DC, S;,st., i. 412; Prodr.. I. 

 7U. — Dklkss , /com. Stl., i. t. 73. - Km>i.., Oen., 

 n. 1750. -H. H., Oen., 15, n. It?.— Hi nth. k 

 V. MiTKi.L., Fl. Austral., i. 47.— II. H.n., 

 Adanxunia, vi. 27U. 



