290 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



three species have been described that grow in Ceylon.' Their leaves 

 are opposite, exstipulate, and aromatic. Their flowers are arranged 

 in axillary bunches of cymes, each terminated by a flower, and with 

 opposite decussate divisions. When the hermaphrodite flowers are 

 compared with those of the Ca/j/canf/iea, we find but few difi'erences 

 between them. In the former the receptacular cup is not so deep, 

 nor when ripe does it envelope the true fruits in a sort of sac. 

 These fruits are drupes, not achenes. The embryo is not rolled up, 

 and is accompanied by copious fleshy albumen ; and the ovules, 

 instead of being ascending, are descending ; while the micropyle, 

 turned outwards in the CnlycaiithecB, here looks inwards. 



In Peumm^ (fig. 324) the flowers are dioecious. The receptacle is 

 like a sac,^ on whose edges are borne the perianth-leaves, which are 

 imbricated, inserted in a spiral, and gradually modified from within 

 outwards, so that the outermost are thicker, shorter, and covered 

 with the same down as that on the receptacular sac, while the inner 

 ones become more and more glabrous, broader, and more mem- 

 branous, finally presenting altogether the consistency and colour of 

 a corolla. In the male flowers numerous stamens are echelonned 

 from the throat of the receptacular sac to its lowermost point or 

 organic apex, becoming shorter as they approach it ; each consists of 

 an incurved filament with two irregular lateral glands towards its base, 

 surmounted by an autlier whose two cells dehiscing by longitu- 

 dinal clefts, which are nearly marginal, but a little nearer the inner 

 than the outer surface. There are no rudiments of female organs. 

 In the female flower, on the contrary, within the perianth, which 

 resembles that of the male flower, the receptacular sac bears a variable 

 number of narrow acute scales representing sterile stamens. Lower 

 down, near its organic apex, the receptacle gives insertion to a small 

 number' of free carpels, each consisting of a one-celled ovary, sur- 



' Wai-P., R^j>., ii. 748; Ann. iv. 115.— HoOK. 410, t. xxxi., iii.— ^oWi* Fkuiu... Oh*. PI. Med., 



k TnoMs.. Fl. Lid., i. lf.6.— Thwait., Enum. 11 (cxparl.). - Boliloa Llndi... hot. Keg. (1846), 



PI. Zei/l.. 11.— A. DC, up. ciL, G72. It Ims t. 57.— C. (Iav, Fl. ChiL, v. 351. 



even been proposed to unite all ibese plants into ' This sac is like an inverteil cone or funnel; 



a single »|)ecic«. within, and especially towardn the lateral walla, 



• MoLlN., Saijrf. Sull. Slor. Nat. Chil. (1782), it is covered with stiff erect hairs, which persist 



185, 350 (ex part.).— A. DC, Prodr., xv\. s. around the frynieceum after the rest »»t the tlower 



post., 673.— H. Un., Ailantonia, ix. 123, 120. has fallen ; over the perianth they become sofl 



— Ruizin I'av., Prodr., 135, t. 2'.t. — Kndl., and scattered. 



Oen. , n. 20\\) ; Icon., t. 21 (nee C'av.). — Ho/- * Usually from three to five. 

 dea Jv«»., Ann. Mus., xiv 131— Tri., )t,.„.. 



