MAGNOLIAGEM 



153 



sliort style covered with stigmatic papillae, situated at a variable 

 height on the inner angle of the ovary. Within, on this internal 

 angle is seen a parietal placenta of two vertical lips, on which are 

 borne the two rows of horizontal or slightly oblique anatropous 

 ovules, placed back to back.' The fruit consists of several inde- 

 hiscent many-seeded berries. Contained within the seed coats* is 

 the fleshy albumen with the embryo near its apex. 



B. Winferi is a shrub or small tree, with alternate exstipulate 

 persistent leaves covered with pellucid dots, inhabiting the west of 

 America from the south of Mexico to Cape Horn, always supposing 

 that it is right to put every Brimys of this region into one species.^ 

 The flowers are axillary to the upper leaves of the branch, or the 

 bracts which continue their series ; they are solitary or united into 

 false umbels,^ of which the pedicels, varying in number, spring from 

 one common axillary peduncle. Beyond the inflorescence (whose 

 axillary situation is thus demonstrated) the branch elongates into a 

 shoot which rarely aborts, more frequently grows very little longer, 



and bears leaves reduced to scales or bracts, or else becomes like 



ordinary branches, and bears leaves as well developed as those observed 



below the flowers. All the parts of this plant are very aromatic. 

 In one species from New Zealand, B. axillaris Forst.,' which De 



Candolle has made the type of his 



section Eudrimys,^ the flowers are poly- 

 gamous and often unisexual (figs. 203, 



204) ; they present the very peculiar 



character of arising, not at the base of 



the young branches, but well on the 



wood of the older ones, usually axillary 



to the last year's leaves, and are borne 



on one-flowered pedicels, solitary or few 



in number.^ The calyx, very short. 



Brimtfs (Etcdrimt/s) axiUaris. 

 Fig. 203. Fig. 204. 



Male Longitudinal section 



of young fruit. 



flower. 



^ There are usually ten, five in each row; 

 some carpels contain as many as thirty. The 

 inferior ones are descending; but towards the 

 top of the ovary they are nearly horizontal, or 

 even slightly ascending. They have two coats. 



- The outer coat is smooth, crustaceous, and 

 brittle. The seed is more or less recurved and 

 reniform (see Eichlee, loc. cit., fig. 24). 



3 As J. HooKiE proposes {Fl. Antarct., i. 229). 



•* In D. granaticum L. FiL., Swppl., 269), 

 considered, as we have said, by several authors. 



a simple variety of D. Winter}, the study of the 

 very young inflorescence has shown us that it is 

 a bunch of cymes. 



5 Gen., 84, t. 42.— DC, Prodr., i. 78, n. 1.— 

 Hook., Icon., 576.— Hook. F., Fl. N.-Zeland., 

 1, 12. — MiEES, Contrib., 132, n. l.—B. colo- 

 rata Raotjl, Ch. de PL N.-Zel, 24, t. 23 (figs. 

 203 and 204 are extracted from that work). 



« Syst. Veg., i. 442.— MiERS {loc. cit.), "Div. 1. 

 Pedunculi plurimi, aggregati, axillares, 1-Jlori." 



7 They then form a cyme. 



