MAGNOLIACEM. 



143 



species ;' while inside is a placenta supporting two descending 

 anatropous ovules, with the micropyle upwards and out- 

 wards." The fruit consists of a large number of berries, 

 which, instead of remaining close together as the carpels 

 were in the flower, are echelonned on the floral axis (which 

 is drawn out into a cylindroidal branch as represented 

 in fig. 182), and each contains two pendulous seeds, within 

 the coats of which is the curved, copious, fleshy albumen, 

 with a small inverted dicotyledonous embryo towards 

 its apex (fig. 190). 



8. coccinea Michx.,^ the only American species as yet 

 known, is a sarmentose shrub, with alternate petiolate 

 exstipulate simple leaves, and solitary pedunculate 

 flowers^ which arise from the axils of the first leaves or 

 bracts of the young branches of the year's growth. 



There are half a dozen species of the same group be- 

 longing to the Old World, which have been referred to 

 the genera Spharostema,^ and Maximovitzia.^ They only 

 difi'er from the American plants in the rather variable 

 number of their perianth leaves, and in the form and 

 number of pieces in the androceum. Thus, in the flowers 

 of S. ehngata^ the stamens are far more numerous than 

 in S. coccinea, and form more turns of the spiral, while 



. ^ Schizand/ra 



they are more elongated into wedges, and taper more i^Sphmrostema) 

 markedly at the base. But the fruit always pre- '-^^"J"^^; 

 sents the remarkable character of the elongation of its Multiple fruit. 

 axis after fecundation (fig. 182). In the flowers of 



what everted, and covered with numerous soft 

 stigmatic papillae composed of almost confluent 

 cells. 



■ The study of organogeny will alone reveal 

 the origin of this projection. It is due to the 

 decurrence of the base of the style, which is much 

 compressed on this level by the two carpels in- 

 terior to it, and gradually advances in the sort of 

 angular space between them, and is, so to say, 

 moulded on the concavity of this angle. The 

 tissue thus deformed long remains soft and pulpy 

 like the stigmatic papilla;. In S. chinensis this 

 pi'ojection is continued a good way along the style 

 itself in the flower ; the borders are crenulate, 

 and the whole forms like a crest capping the 

 carpel. 



* They are exactly collateral at first, but at a 

 certain age undergo a slight torsion so as to 



bring the raphes closer together, and turn the 

 micropyles towards the sides of the cell. 



3 Op. cit., 219, t. 47.— DC, Frodr., i. 104.— 

 SiJis, £ot. Mag., t. 1413.— Tore. & Gray, 

 Fl. N.-Amer., i. 46, 662.— A. Gray, Qen., t. 

 22.— Chapm., Fl. S. Unit.-St., 13. 



^ The peduncle is slightly swollen towards the 

 upper part, where it presents a transverse articu- 

 lation. 



5 Blume, Bijdraj., 22 ; Fl. Jav., ScUzandr., 

 xiii. t. 3-5; Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 2, ii. 91. — Jrss., 

 Ann. Mus., xvi. 340. — Endl., Gen., n. 4732. — 

 Griff., Icon. Posth., 651.— Hook. & Thoms., 

 Fl. Ltd., i. 84.— H. Bn., Adansonia, iii. 43; 

 vii. 11, 66.— Walp., Rep., i. 92; v. 15; Ann., 

 iv. 79. — Kadsura Wall., Fl. Nepal., i. t. 9-13. 



« RuPR., Frimit. Fl. Amur., 31, t. 1. 



' SphcBrostema elongatum Bl., Fl. Jav. Schi- 



