158 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



contain ln<^ from one to four seeds, which possess copious fleshy- 

 albumen surrounding- a small embryo placed near the apex. 



The Euptnlens are trees differinf^ -widely in aspect from most Mag- 

 7ioIiacea. Their scaly buds develope alternate petiolate, exstipulate, 

 caducous leaves, with a rounded or heart-shaped penniveined blade 

 fringed with glandular teeth when young. The flowers appear 

 before the leaves, and are collected into very short catkins also in 

 scaly buds. 



Next to Evptelca, we may provisionally station Trochodendron^ 

 which might also constitute a particular section, because its receptacle 

 assumes a markedly concave form, and the carpels, instead of being 

 quite free, are partly imbedded by the base in the sort of axial cup 

 thus formed. Hence the stamens inserted on the rim of this cup 

 are slightly perigynous. They are, moreover, indefinite as in Eup- 

 tclca, and each consists of a free filament and a two-celled adnate 

 basifixed anther dehiscing by two longitudinal, nearly marginal, 

 clefts.- Around the androceum we see no true perianth, but only 

 some slight projections of the receptacle.^ The carpels are of an 

 indefinite but small number.'' The way their ovaries are inserted on 

 the receptacle makes them appear united for a large extent on the 

 outside. But on the inside they are far more deeply separated, and 

 are quite free in the stylar portion, which has the shape of a horn 

 recurved at the tip, and traversed down the inner edge by a longitu- 

 dinal groove, whose lips are covered above with stigmatic papillae. 

 Each ovary contains on its inner angle a two-lipped placenta bearing 

 a variable number' of horizontal anatropous ovules. The fruit con- 

 sists of several follicles united by the common receptacle below and 

 externally, free above, and dehiscing by an internal vertical cleft. 

 The numerous seeds contain fleshy albumen and an embryo of small 

 size. 



But one species of this genus is as yet known," a Japanese tree 



' SiEB. and Zucc, Fl. Jap., 83, t. 39, 40. — ^ These are a sort of unequal horizontal 



Endl., Gen., n. 47 W. — jVIieks., Contrih., i. wrinkles, whose existence even is not constant. 



1 H.— ElcnLF.H.in Flora (18G4), 449; (1865), 12 j Perhaps, indeed, they are only the effects of de- 



Jovrn. of But., 'in. 150; Flor.Bras. MagnoUac, siccation. 



131. — R. H., Gen., YJ, 954. — Gymnanthus * There are often from six to eight. 



Jr.vr.n., in Hoev. and De Veiese, Tijdschr., " There are often six in each row. The raphes 



vii., 308 (nee ArcTT.). of those of the one row are turned towards those 



- The clefts are somewhat nearer the outer of the other. 



than the inner face of the anther. The connec- ^ T. aralioides Sieb. and Zucc, loc. cit. The 



tive ends in a somewhat projecting, rather obtuse habit and foliage do, in fact, recall those of several 



tip. Araliacece, an order to which Bentham & 



