CCVIII. AEISTOLOCHIE^E. 



707 



Asarum* 

 Andrceciuni and pistil (mag.). 



Asarum. 



Seed, entire and cut vertically 

 (mag.). 



nished with, bracts, usually large, sometimes small, brown or blackish-purple, often 

 foetid. PERIANTH single (CALYX), sometimes regular, 3-lobed, campanul ate or rotate, 

 sometimes irregular, polymorphous ; tube swollen above the summit of the ovary into 

 a utricle enclosing the stamens, and spreading into a cup-shaped 1-2-labiate or 

 peripheric limb, valvate or induplicate in aestivation, persistent or marcescent. 

 STAMENS 6, rarely 5 or 12 (rarely 18-36), sometimes furnished with short filaments, 

 free, or coherent below, inserted on an epigynous annular disk, or at the base of the 

 stylary column, sometimes sessile and adnate to the stylary column by the whole inner 

 surface of the anthers ; anthers 2 -celled, extrorse, or rarely sub-introrse, or some ex- 

 trorse,and the others introrse in the same flower (Heterotropa) , cells parallel, apposed, 

 dehiscence longitudinal, connective sometimes prolonged into a point (Asarum). 

 OVARY more or less completely inferior, slender (except Asarum), 6- or 4-celled ; 

 styles usually 6, rarely 3 or more, united at the base into a column (nearly always 

 staminiferous), divided at the top into stigmatiferous lobes; ovules anatropous, raphe 

 thick, 2-seriate at the inner angles of the 6-celled ovaries, and 1 -seriate down the 

 centre of the septum in the 4-celled ovaries (Bragantia). FRUIT sometimes crowned 

 by the persistent calyx-limb or by its marcescent base, sometimes umbilicate by 

 its scar, a capsule, rarely a berry, sometimes sub-globular or 4-gonous, usually 

 6-gonous, with 6 or 4 cells, sometimes irregularly dehiscent, usually septicidally 

 6-4 valved at the base, rarely at the top, rarely apical. SEEDS more or less numerous, 

 horizontal, usually flattened, lower face convex, upper concave and occupied by a 

 prominent suberose fungoid raphe, which separates from the testa ; albumen copious, 

 fleshy or sub-horny. EMBRYO minute, basilar, axile ; cotyledons very short, scarcely 

 visible before germination ; radicle near the hilum, centripetal or inferior. 



TRIBE I. ASAREJ2. 



Ovary 6-celled, more or less inferior, short and rather broad. Stamens 12, 

 free ; filaments distinct from the stylary column, 6 outer shortest, opposite to the 

 styles ; anthers introrse or extrorse. Calyx persistent ; limb regular, 3-lobed. 

 Capsule opening irregularly. Herbs with perennial rhizomes, lower leaves scale- 

 like, cauline normal, reniform. Flower terminal, solitary. 



GENERA. 



Asarum. 



Heterotropa. 



z z 2 



