404 



NATUUAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



formini,' i\ sliort cup, sac, or tube. On its edges are inserted the 

 calvx torined of five' sepals, quincuncially imbricated in the bud, 

 and tlie corolhi, whose petals are arranged and imbricated as in the 

 Koses. The stamens are inserted a little lower down than the 



Prunus Amygdalus. 



Fig. 471. 

 Flower. 



Pig. 472. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



perianth, above the rim of a glandular, often coloured disk lining 

 the whole inside of the receptacle. They are often twenty in 

 number : five superposed to the sepals, five to the petals, and ten 

 placed one on either side of each of the latter." Each consists of a 



free filament inflexed in the bud, 

 and an introrse two- celled anther de- 

 hiscing longitudinally. The unicar- 

 pellary gynajceum,^ inserted in the 

 bottom of the receptacle, consists of 

 a one-celled ovary superposed to a 

 sepal, surmounted by a terminal style, 

 dilated at the tip into a stigmati- 

 ferous head. A vertical groove runs 

 along the \vhole of the style and 

 ovary, answering to where the cavity 

 of the latter bears a parietal placenta, on which are inserted two col- 

 lateral descending anatropous ovules, with their micropyles superior, 



Fig. 173. 

 Seed. 



Fig. 474. 

 Embryo. 



■ There are often hexandrous flowers in several 

 specie)* of the section Amygdalus, but there are 

 rarely tetrnmerous flowers. 



' ThiTc arc pretty often thirty in Ami/gdalus 

 and Ceru-tiis, each petal having five instead of 

 three in front of it. The androceuin is alway.s 

 what we have termed for shortness' sake an 

 "nndroceuni of the Itosticetp." In the flowirs of 



the common Almond, with thirty stamens, we 

 first find two, the largest of all, in front of each 

 petal, and then a third alternate with these. 

 The fourth and fifth are superposed to the first 

 two, and are the youngest and smallest of all, 

 including even those superposed to the sepals. 



•' \^'e often, however, find abnormal flowers in 

 Prunns, inclosing two or more free carpels (tigs. 



