412 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



capped by an obturator. The Iriiit is a drupe with the thickened 

 receptacle and withered calyx around its base. The development 

 of tlie pericarp luis taken place to such an extent on one side during 

 maturation, that the style has become lateral or even nearly basilar.' 

 ^t(>ne contains an ascending seed whose oily fleshy exalbuminous 



Prinsepia utilis. 



Tl 



le 



Fio. 48i. 

 Flower. 



Fig. 485. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



embryo has its radicle downwards. The only known species of 

 Prinsepia is P. utilis^- a bushy shrub from the temperate regions of 

 India, with alternate simple leaves possessing two caducous stipules. 

 Its flowers are in axillary racemes, or are solitary axillary ; each 

 peduncle is accompanied by a spine which is really an abortive branch, 

 and is frequently found bearing a few alternate bracts in the axils 

 of the leaves of the non-floriferous branches. 



Not without hesitation do we bring near Prinsepia the genus 

 Strephonema,^ which has heen considered a doubtful Lythrariad. In 

 fact its flowers seem to us to difler from those of the preceding genus 

 solely in their ovary, which is free only in its upper part. The re- 

 ceptacle forms a cup bearing on its everted edges five sepals,^ and as 

 many alternate petals, both sets imbricated. The androceum is 

 diplostemonous, and the free stamens, inserted more internally and 

 lower down than the perianth, resemble those of Prinsepia. The one- 

 celled ovary tapers above into a long style, also tapering to its stig- 

 matiferous tip ; and below the place where it becomes free from all 

 adhesion with the receptacle, it contains on a parietal placenta two 

 collateral curved amphitropous ovules, either descending, their micro- 

 I)yles near the hilum and looking towards the placenta, or more rarely 



' Hence this peniis has nearly always been ^ P. utilis RoTLE, loc. cit. — Walp., Rep., 



rcfcrretl to the group ChriisobnJnnem. In fact, ii. 7. 



Prinsepia belongs to Pnoiea- by its Hewers, to ^ Hook., F., Gen., 782, n. 21 ? 



Chryxobalanece by its fruit. ^ ir. Mannii and <S'. sericea Hook. F., loc. cit. 



