M0NIMIACE2E. 



291 



mounted by a style like a little papillose strap, articulated at its 

 base. In the inner angle of the ovary is a placenta, bearing a single 

 descending anatropous ovule, whose micropyle looks upwards and 

 inwards. Scarcely has the flower expanded when the upper part of 

 the receptacle falls off in a circular piece, bringing with it the 

 perianth and the sterile androceum. The base of the receptacle 



Peumus Boldus. 



Fig. 324. 

 Flowering branch (male). 



alone persists, like a disk bordered with an annular scar, and 

 fringing the base of the multiple fruit. This consists of several 

 very shortly -stalked druj^es,^ containing within the rather thin flesh 

 a very hard one-seeded stone." The seed contains within its 

 membranous coats an abundant fleshy, oily albumen, whose apex 

 is occupied by an embryo with a superior radicle and diverging 

 cotyledons between which the albumen projects like a wedge. Only 



' At maturity there is very frequently only 

 one. 



'^ The mesocarp is very aromatic, and the 

 surface of the stone is unequally tuberculate. 

 The embryo is not, as Lindley thought, totally 

 exterior to the albumen ; but this, as represented 

 very faithfully by TuLASNE, surrounds the em- 

 bryo, covering it with a complete layer ; it is 

 true that in the upper part this is very thin. 



The diverging cotyledons cover in a part of the 

 albumen like a roof, the whole of their ujiper 

 inner surface being directly applied to it. But 

 this is not the true organic apex of the albu- 

 men, which is just above the apex of the radicle. 

 As in several other Alonimlaccfv, a bai.d of the 

 seed coats, corresponding to the raphe, is crus- 

 taceous instead of membranous, like the rest, 

 from which it is easily separated. 



u 2 



