LEG UMINOS.E- CJZSALPINIE2E. 87 



scending ovules, whose micropyles look upwards and outwards. The 

 fruit is a shortly-stipitate compressed indehiscent pod, containing 

 one or two large seeds, whose embryo has a straight radicle and 

 broad foliaceous cotyledons, cordate at the base. Sclerolobium consists 

 of half a score species of trees from Brazil and Guiana. 1 They have 

 alternate imparipinnate leaves, with stipules which vary greatly in 

 size, and which may be simple or trifoliolate. The flowers are small 

 and very numerous, in numerous racemes which are often much 

 ramified. Each flower is axillary to a caducous bract. 



Diptycka/idra' 2 has the flowers of the section Cosymbe of Sclero- 

 lobium. The imbricate sepals are all nearly equal, and are inserted 

 on the rim of a hollow obconical receptacle. The staminal filaments, 

 too, are bent on themselves in the bud, and the stipitate pauciovulate 

 ovary is surmounted by a style which is hollowed out at its truncate 

 apex. The fruit is a flattened bivalve pod, containing one or more 

 seeds which are flattened out transversely and attached to the peri- 

 carp by one of their edges, just as in Hcemaio.vylon ; and a mem- 

 branous wing formed by the extension of their coats runs all round 

 them. The broad flattened embryo, with more or less deeply 

 auriculate cotyledons, is exalbuminous. Two or three species of 

 Diptychandra are known, trees or shrubs from Brazil and Bolivia, 3 

 with pinnate leaves and flowers in axillary or terminal racemes. 



Pceppiyia* has not only the vegetative characters of Diptychandra 

 and Sclerolobium with the flowers in compound terminal racemes, but 

 the same floral receptacle, the same centrally inserted gynseceum,' 

 the same corolla and disk. The calyx, however, divided above into 

 five slightly imbricate lobes, is continuous and gamosepalous below. 

 The staminal filaments are erect and straight, not bent in the bud. 

 The ovules are numerous ; the style is truncate, not dilated, at 

 its stigmatiferous apex. The fruit is equally characteristic : it has 

 a slender foot, and is a flattened elongated membranous leaf-like 

 many-seeded pod, probably indehiscent. Its placentary margin is 



1 Pcepp. & Endl., Nov. Gen. et Spec, t.26C>.— Gen., n. 6762.— B. H., Gen., 562, n. 298 (nee 

 Tul., loc cit., 168, 169.— Wall>., Eep., i. 809; Bert., nee Kunz.).— B troires A. Rich., /" 

 v. 551 ; Ann., ii. 440. Cub., ii. 218 (Peeppigia), t. 39. 



2 Tul., in Ann. Sc Nat., ser. 2, xx. 139; in s The foot bearing the ovary dilates gradually 

 Arch. Mus., iv. 127, t. 8.— B. II., Gen., 562, n. down towards its base; but we have seen it in- 

 297. serted in the very bottom of the ovary, contrary 



3 Walp., Eep., v. 551. to the description of authors. 



4 Peesl., Symh. Bot., i. 15, t. 8. — Endl., 



