BOS ACE JS. 



373 



At the end of this series we put a genus whidi, though hitherto 

 referred to Spiraa, appears to us in all important cliaracters closely 

 analogous to Purs/da and Coleocjyne. The flowers of Adenosfoma' 

 (fig. 438) are small and hermaphrodite ; the receptacle is like an 

 elongated cornet, traversed externally by 

 prominent vertical ribs, and lined by a 

 layer of glandular tissue with a festooned 

 thickened edge. On the borders of the mouth 

 of the receptacle are inserted the perianth 

 and androceum, while the gynceceum is in- 

 serted in the bottom of its cavity. There 

 are five sepals, imbricated in the bud, as 

 are the five petals. The stamens are from 



Adenostoma fasciculatum. 



seven or eight to fifteen or twenty in 



Fig. 438. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



number, arranged in whorls like those of so 

 many other Bosacea, and each consisting of a 

 free filament inflexed in the bud, and an introrse two-celled anther, 

 whose connective is thickened, and which dehisces longitudinally. 

 The gynseceum consists of a single free carpel, with a shortly stipitate 

 one-celled ovary, containing one or two descending collateral 

 anatropous ovules, whose micropyles are superior and dorsal, and 

 which are inserted on a parietal placenta. The summit of the 

 ovary is unequally gibbous,"- and covered on one side with hairs ; 

 near it is inserted the style, which here first forms one bend and 

 then ascends, finally terminating in a more or less oblique stig- 

 matiferous dilatation. The fruit is an achene, surrounded by the 

 hard persistent receptacle. Two species of Adenostoma are known, 

 bushy shrubs of Heath-like habit^ from California, with narrow 

 coriaceous alternate leaves, solitary or fascicled, possessing two little 

 lateral stipules. The flowers are collected into glomeruli in the 

 axils of the leaves or the bracts which replace them towards the 

 summit of the branch ; so that the whole inflorescence forms a spike 

 of glomeruli. 



' HOOE. & Aen., Bot. Beech. Voy., 139, 338, 

 t. 30.— Endl., Gen., n. 6371.— -B. H., Oen., Gli, 

 n. 26 (nee Bl.). 



- Especially in J[./aseJcMZaia. In A. sparsi- 

 J'llia it bears a ne;irly regular promiuent ring 

 near the insertion of the style ; above this arc 



chiefly inserted the hairs covering its summit 

 and i)ersisting on the fruit. 



^ Walp., litq)., V. 655. — Toiiu., Emor. Bej>., 

 63, t. 20.— Toitu. & Gk., Wippl. Rep., 161 



(28). 



