26 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



of trees from tropical Asia, Africa, and America, 1 with alternate 

 leaves and a very peculiar form of inflorescence. It consists of a 

 sort of globular or pyriform capitulum (fig. 24), ending a long naked 

 peduncle, either solitary axillary pendulous, or approximated to 

 other similar peduncles to form a sort of terminal raceme. The 

 whole of the swollen part of these inflorescences is covered with 

 alternate, very closely imbricated bracts. Axillary to each is a com- 

 pressed flower (fig. 27), which later on protrudes from the interval 

 between the bracts, and if fertile expands its anthers and style 

 outside. From the flowers at the base of the capitulum protrude 

 coloured 2 monadelphous staminodes; the gynasceum is altogether 

 absent, or reduced to a little sessile rudimentary ovary. 



Pentaclethra* has also pentamerous flowers with an imbricate calyx 

 and a valvate corolla ; they are hermaphrodite or dioecious. The 

 calyx, inserted at the very base of the flower, forms a sac whose 

 mouth alone is divided into five deep teeth, obtuse at the apex and 

 much overlapping. Internal to this is a hollow thick- walled cornet, 

 with which the limb of the corolla and the stamens do not split off 

 until a certain height. 4 Its cavity is lined by a glandular disk with 

 five lobes or crenulations of variable form. The androceum consists 

 in P. filamcntosa? a species from tropical America, of ten stamens, 

 monadelphous at the base, and superposed five to the petals, five to 

 the calyx-lobes. This latter set alone are fertile, consisting of a 

 filament free above, and an introrse two-celled anther of longitudinal 

 dehiscence surmounted by a large depressed gland. The five other 

 stamens are very long narrow exserted tongues, completely 

 sterile. In P. macrophylla? on the contrary, from the west of 

 tropical Africa, there is a larger number of pieces in the androceum, 

 namely, five fertile alternipetalous stamens, the anther bearing an 

 introrse gland between its two cells, and opposite each petal, instead 

 of a single staminode, two or three slender subulate scales much 



1 W., Spec, iv. 1025.— DC, Prodi-., ii. 

 442, n. 106.— Pal. Beaut., Fl. Ow. et Ben., 

 ii. 53, t. 90. — Jacq., Stirp. Amer., t. 179, 

 fig. 87.— Sab., in Trans. Sort. Soc., v. 4 1 1. 

 — Roxb., Fl. Lid., ii. 551. — W. & Aex., 

 Prodr., i. 279.— Miq., Fl. Ind.-Bat., Suppl., i. 

 283. — Waip., Rep., i. 857 ; Ann. ii. 449; 

 iv. 612.— Olit., Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 323. 



2 White or red, while the upper flowers are 

 brownish, yellowish, or reddish. 



3 Bextit., in Hook. Journ., ii. 127 ; iv. 330. 

 — B. H., Gen., 588, 1004, n. 372.— Ii. Bx., in 

 Adansonia, vi. 204. — Olit., in Trans. Linn. 

 Soc, xxiv. 415, t. 37 ; Fl, Trop. Afr., ii. 323. 



4 So that there is some douht as to the mor- 

 phological signification of the base of this tube. 



5 Bexth., loc. cit., n. 1, 2. — Walp., Rep., 

 i. 857. 



6 Bexth., loc cit., iv. 330. — Olit., loc. cit. 

 — Owala of the Gaboon Kiver natives. 



