82 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Pterolobium 1 has nearly regular flowers, whose receptacle forms a 

 shallow cupule lined by a glandular disk, and bearing on its rim five 

 imbricate sepals, five imbricate petals like those of Ccesatyinia, and 

 ten free stamens superposed to the perianth-leaves, each pos- 

 sessing an introrse two-celled anther dehiscing longitudinally. The 

 ovary, inserted nearly in the centre of the receptacle, contains one 

 or two descending ovules, with the micropyles upwards and out- 

 wards ; it is surmounted by a style whose stigmatic apex is truncate, 

 or hollow and funnel-shaped. The fruit is an indehiscent samara, 

 the upper part being prolonged into an oblique wing, just like the 

 " key" of a Maple. On the same side as the insertion of this wing 

 is attached the seed, suspended by a slender funicle, and containing 

 within its coats a fleshy exalbuminous embryo or a straight superior 

 radicle. Pterolobium consists of trees or climbing shrubs. Their 

 leaves are bipinnate with numerous small leaflets. The flowers are 

 grouped in simple or ramified racemes, each axillary to a caducous 

 bract. The three known species 2 of this genus inhabit tropical Asia, 

 Africa, and Australia. 



The flowers of Barkli/a* are very like those of Pterolobium, and 

 possess the same shallow cupuliform receptacle lined with glandular 

 tissue. The gamosepalous calyx has five short slightly imbricated 

 lobes. The corolla consists of as many nearly equal petals, with 

 the vexillary petal usually overlapped on both sides in prsefloration. 4 

 The stamens are free perigyuous and arranged in two whorls, as in 

 Pterolobium ; each has a glabrous filament and an introrse sagittate 

 two-celled anther of longitudinal dehiscence. The gynseceum is 

 stipitate, with the ovary ending in a little stigmatiferous terminal 

 point. The ovules are few in number, 5 descending ; the micropyles 

 look upwards and outwards. The fruit is a stipitate oblong-lanceo- 



1 E. Be., in App. Salt. Ahyss., 64. — W. & 3 F. Muell., in Journ. Linn. Soc, iii. 158 ; 

 Aen., Prodr., i. 283. — Exdl., Gen., n. 6769. — Fragm. Phyt. Austr., i. t. 3. — Benth., Fl. 

 B. H., Gen., 567, n. 311. — Kantuffa Bettce, Austr., ii. 275.— B. H., Gen., 559, n. 289. 

 Voi/., trad. Castek., v. 64, t. 14. — Reickardia * Perhaps the aestivation is not constant, and 

 Roth., Nov. Gen. et Spec, 210 (part.). — henceitis.no doubt, that Bextham and Hook i:k 

 Quartinia A. Rich., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 2, have placed Barklya among Papilionacece-So- 

 xiv. 259 ; xv. 179. phorece ; but we do not leave it there, because 



2 Wight, Icon., t. 196. — Miq., Fl. Ind.- on dissecting a very large number of flower buds, 

 Bat., i. 106.— Bexth., Fl. Austr., ii. 279. — we have never seen the petal to which the 

 Out., Fl. Prop. Afr., ii. 264. — Wale., Rep., i. placenta is superposed overlapping the two lateral 

 811; Ann., ii. 443 ; iv. 592. — " Schweinfubth petals on both sides, as is normally the case in 

 ( Fl. JEthiop., 5, 255), indicates a second species as Papilionaceee. 



occurring in Abyssinia and Senaar. No name or 5 There are usually two or three, more rarely 



description is given" (Oltv., loc. cit.). only one. 



