29-t NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



because the perianth of the female flowers comes off in a circular 

 piece (fis^s. 335, 330) to discover the carpels, which it at first covered 

 completely. In this respect MoIIinedia is to Peumus what Hedy- 

 carya is to Hortonia. The flowers are dioecious,' and even in the 

 same species the perianth varies in form with the sex. It forms a 

 globular, turbinate, or nearly campanulate sac, usually split up into 

 four lobes of variable length, imbricated and decussate in the bud. 

 The two outer lobes are not always similar to the inner pair, and 

 sometimes behave quite diflerently on the expansion of the flower.- 

 The stamens are most frequently very numerous, from twenty to 

 sixty in number, inserted over the whole surface of the perigonal 

 sac in vertical rows, two or three superposed to each division of the 

 calyx. Each stamen consists of a short filament first inflexed and 

 then erect, and a basifixed anther shaped like a horse-shoe. Its two 

 cells^ surround the edges of an oval connective continuous with the 

 filament, and dehisce each by a longitudinal cleft, the two clefts 

 appearing single when the dehiscence is completed. The perianth 

 of the female flower has also an opening whose edges are split into 

 four imbricated decussate lobes. On the bottom of the receptacle 

 formed by the dilatation of the pedicel, we find an indefinite 

 number of carpels crowded together, and resembling those of Hedy- 

 carya, each with a suspended ovule, whose micropyle looks upwards 

 and inwards (figs. 330, 336). The drupes and seeds are also the 

 same as in the genus Hedycarya. 



The true MoUinedias are of American origin ; a couple of species 

 come from Mexico, and the twenty-five others belong to South 



* They are said to be monoecious in excep- equal, triangular, and first erect, afterwards spread- 



tional cases (Bexth., PI. Hartweg., 250). They ing. The perianth is campanulate and quadrifid. 

 may be incompletely hermaphrodite, either be- ^ They are either exactly marginal, or slightly 



cause the female flowers present rudimentary introrse ; more rarely, nearly extrorse. There 



sterile stamens towards the throat of the peri- arc really two cells to the anther ; but after de- 



anth, or because at the very bottom of the recep- hiscence the two clefts, which were at first dis- 



tacle of the male flowers are contained ill- tinct, coalesce at the apex. In the species with 



developed CJirpels, with, however, a rudimentary elongated anthers, after dehiscence we see two 



ovule in each ovary. This is very marked in panels, one internal the other external, each 



most of the male flowers of M. elliptica {M. formedof two half-cells, and separating from the 



nitidn TuL. — Tetralome elliptica Gakdn., other from above downwards ; they then take very 



Hook.Journ., 1842, 530). different forms and directions. The one remains 



2 The two inside are often larger, thinner, flat or nearly so, or else its very thin edges are 



and with the edges less entire than the two out- rcflexed outwards, while the other (usually the 



side, besides being often more ruflexed. In the inner one) is much more markedly imbricate. 



male flowers of M. Uguslrina TrL. {Ann. Sc. The open anther thus presents a conformation 



Aat., ser. 1, iii. 44), the four divisions of the that is sometimes very peculiar, and it may ap- 



calyx, deeply separated from one another, are pear unilocular. 



