12 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



naracea in the complete anatropy of its ovule, and we now know of 

 Connaracea in which this anatropy is, as it were, sketched out. The 

 same may be said of Rutacea and Simarubea, groups to which BruneUia 

 has been successively referred, though they are usually characterized 

 either by glands with odoriferous essential oil, or the marked bitter- 

 ness of all the parts ; while Averrhoa, among Oxalidea, is now most 

 closely allied to Connaracea 1 through Connaropsis, which would be a 

 Cnestis were its carpels but free instead of being united into a five- 

 celled ovary. As for the Detariea and Copaiferea, they are so close 

 to the unicarpellary species of Connarus (Omphalobium), and to Tric/io- 

 lobus, where the carpel is also solitary, that there is no collection 

 where the two groups are not to be found intermixed. There are 

 really two points in which these reduced Leguminosa differ from 

 Connaracea ; they possess stipules and a completely reflexed ovule ; 

 all other characters being similar, there is a very close affinity 

 between the two groups. One more alliance remains to be pointed 

 out — that between this Order and the series Spiraea of Rosacea. 

 Nothing can bear closer resemblance to certain plants of this series 

 with biovulate carpels than do Agelaa, Manotes, and several other 

 Cnestidea ; the perianth, the diplostemonous androceum, the five 

 free biovulate carpels, are all identical ; and as these last are often 

 nearly anatropous in Manotes, which moreover possesses alternate 

 pinnate leaves and a panicled inflorescence, all that we have left to 

 separate the two types is that certain Spiraea have stipules and that 

 their seeds are usually exalbuminous. But as these two features are 

 not even constant, the reasons which have led us to place Connaracea 

 between Rosacea and Leguminosa will easily be understood. 



What then are the characters by help of which we can subdivide 

 Connaracea ? What characters are constant in this small order ? 

 Of the latter there are several, by no means without importance — 

 the independence of the carpels, their number (never greater 

 than that of the petals), and the number of ovules in each, 

 the upturning of the micropyle, the consistency of the pericarp 

 (always dry and finally dehiscent), the true diplostemony of the 

 androceum, the alternation of the leaves, the absence of stipules, 



1 Its affinities with which were long since demonstrated hy R. Brown. 



