ROSACEA. 



351 



spersed with very unequal prickles. This genus Vohjlepift includes 

 half a score species,' trees from the temperate regions of the Andes, 

 growing in Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. The branches are often 

 denuded and twisted ; the leaves are alternate, with two adnate 

 stipules, and a trifoliolate or imparipinnatc blade. The flowers are in 

 lax pendulous racemes, each flower axillary to a bract, and with two 

 lateral bractlets. 



JnBencomid' we find the pinnate leaves of certain species oiPolt/lepis, 

 and their flowers in long pendulous spikes. But these flowers are 

 dioecious. In the female alone is there a receptacular sac, lodging 

 from two to four carpels in its concavity. The males lack this con- 

 cavity in the receptacle ; they possess a calyx composed, as in the 

 females, of from three to five imbricated leaves, and an androceuni 

 like that of Poteriicm or Poli/lepis, formed of a variable number of free 

 stamens. We know of two frutescent species of Bencomia,^ natives 

 of Madeira and the Canary Islands. The genus is closely allied to 

 the preceding, and might perhaps 

 be united to it simply as a distinct 

 section. The male flower at the 

 same time closely recalls what we 

 shall find in CUffortia. 



Accena' (figs. 407, 408) has the 

 same receptacle, disk, and insertion; 

 the calyx has no calycle, and 

 consists of three or four, or rarely 

 more leaves ; these are slightly 

 imbricated in the very young 

 bud, but early cease to overlap. The stamens are inserted on a level 

 with the sepals and superposed to them ; but are rarely found in 

 equal or larger numbers. For more frequently there are only two or 

 three of the sepals which have each in front of their middle lines one 

 of these organs,* formed of a slender free filament and a two-celled 



Ac(ena sericea. 



Fig. 408. 



Longitudinal section of 



flower. 



' H.B.K., Nov. Gen. et Spec. PL JEquin., vi. 

 1V9.— Wkdd., Chlor. And., ii. 237, t. V8. 



» Webb, Phi/io(j.Canar.,n.t.d9. — Spach.^hw. 

 Sc. Nat., scr. 3, v. 43.— B. H., Gen., 624, n. 58. 



3 Ait., Rort. Kew., iii. 354.— Coll., Jlort. 

 Bipul., 112, t. 40.— DC, Prodr., ii. 594, n. 2. 

 — Hook., Bot. Mag., t. 2341. — Lowe, Fl. 

 Mader., 240. 



'» Vahl, Enum., i. 273.— L., Manl., 200.— 



J., Gen., 336. — Lamk., Did., i. 25; Snppl., i. 

 86. — Endl., Gen., n. 6372.— Spacii, Suit, a 

 Bufon, i. 453.— B. H., Gen., 623, n. 56.— ^»- 

 cistrum FOEST., Char. Gen., 3, t. 2.— Cf.ERTN., 

 Fruct., i. 163, t. 32.— Lamk., Diet., i. 148; 

 Suppl., i. 341.; IU.,X,. 22, tig. 1. 



" We may even find monandrous flowers, and 

 that too in species with as many as three or 

 four stamens normally. 



