32 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Their flowers are rarely tetramerous, but more frequently penta- or 

 hexamerous. Their pod breaks np into one-seeded joints, and its 

 marginal string is glabrous or provided with prickles of little rigidity. 

 All are trees or shrubs from tropical America, 1 with alternate bipin- 

 nate sensitive" leaves (fig. 22) and non-glandular petioles. The 

 flowers form short spikes or globular capitula, differently situated 

 even in one and the same plant. 3 Each flower is axillary to a bract. 

 Sometimes the calyx is rudimentary and reduced to a few short 

 ciliate bristles. 



In all the other Mimosas the androceum is diplostemonous, there 

 being oppositisepalous stamens in addition to those of which we 

 have spoken. The number of parts in the floral whorls varies from 

 three to five or six, but is usually four or five. In some species, 

 forming the section Habbasia* the pods separate into joints as in 

 Eumimosa; the marginal cords are naked or bear prickles, often 

 hooked. This section consists of trees or shrubs, sometimes climbing, 

 rarely herbs, from tropical America, Asia, and Africa, with glandular 

 or eglandular leaves bearing long rigid bristles between the pin- 

 nules. 5 In the remaining species, however, the valves of the fruit 

 fall in single pieces ; the petioles very seldom possess glands or 

 bristles between the pinnules ; the leaves are even sometimes absent 

 or replaced by phyllodes. They are trees, or rarely herbs, from 

 America, and make up the section Ameria* 



The flowers of Schranckid} resemble those of Mimosa, with the 



1 There are upwards of a hundred. Velloz., little bud, and so on. In certain species there 

 Fl. Fhnn., xi. t. 31, 33, 34. — H. B. K., Nov. are only bracts instead of leaves at the summit 

 Gen. et Spec, vi. 248. — K., Jlimos., t. 1-5. — of the branches ; in that case we have terminal 

 Hook., Icon., t. 373. — Bot. Beg., t. 25, 911. — racemes of capitula or spikes. 



Kabst., Fl. Cohrml., t. 130, 131. « DC, op. at., 128, sect. ii. (inch Bataucolon 



2 Several species have leaves which fold up DC, op. cit., 428, sect. iii.). 



quickly under different influences, especially 5 This genus includes some sixty species, 



that of any shock or touch. In M. pudica the Cat., Icon., t. 295. — Eoxb., PL Corom., t. 



leaflets rise up and fold together, overlapping 200. — Velloz., op. cit., xi. t. 35. — K.. Jlimos., 



like tiles; the secondary petioles are approxi- t. 6-10, 23. — DC, Mem. Legum., t, 63. — 



mated, while the common petiole descends on Hook., Icon., t. 456.— Karst., op. cit., t. 132, 



the branch. 133.— Oliv., Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 335. 



3 The inflorescences are often axillary. In 6 Bexth., loc. cit. About fifty species are 

 M.florilunda W., and very many allied species, known. K., op. cit., t. 26. — Keichb., Icon. 

 there are two pedunculate capitula in the axil Exot., t. 63. — Hot. Beg. (1842,) t. 33. For the 

 of a single leaf. They are really inserted on a species of this genus generally see Walp., Sep., 

 little axillary branch which ends in a bud. In i. 864; ii. 905 ;^4n«. i. 260; ii. 450; iv. 615. 

 31. pudica this short axillary branch ends in a '• W., Spec, iv. 1041 (nee Medik). — DC, 

 bud, and bears first a capitulum on either side Prodr., ii. 443. — Exdl., Gen., n. 6829. — 

 above the stipules of the axilant leaf, next two B. H., Gen., 593, n. 388. — Leptoglottis DC, 

 others, one between either of the former and the Mem. Legum., 451. 



