LEGTJMIN0SX-C2ESALPIN1EJ:. 



Ill 



Bauhinia {Casparid) porrecta. 



1 ' 



concave receptacle lined by a glandular disk. The calyx is tubular 1 

 and gamosepalous, divided above into five dentate teeth, valvate or 

 imbricate in the bud. Usually it divides on anthesis into a certain 

 number of parts marked off by 

 longitudinal clefts, but it often 

 opens into a single spathe-like 

 piece owing to there being but 

 one of these clefts, more or less 

 perfect. The petals are of nearly 

 equal size or unequal, as the 

 vexillary petal may be larger or 

 smaller ; the rest differ in form 

 or colour. The pignoration is 

 imbricate, with the vexillary petal 

 overlapped 2 by the two lateral 

 ones, and these again by the an- 

 terior pair. The stamens are in 

 two whorls, superposed to the se- 

 pals and petals respectively ; the 

 former set are the larger. Each 

 stamen consists of a filament and 

 an introrse two-celled anther of 

 longitudinal dehiscence. 3 The 

 gynseceum is borne on a foot of 



variable length, inserted either in the bottom of the receptacle as in 

 Sclerolobiea, or at a variable height inside its walls, though in this 

 case anteriorly, not posteriorly as in that series. The one-celled ovary 

 contains a variable number 4 of descending ovules on a placenta 

 looking towards the vexillary petal. 5 It ends in a style whose stig- 



Fig. 85. 

 Inflorescence (§). 



1 Lined by a layer of glandular tissue, often 

 very thin, but sometimes, though rarely, thick- 

 ened, especially near the edges. 



2 Sometimes only one edge is overlapped. 

 When the posterior sepal is absent, a single sepal 

 occupies the place of the two posterior ones of 

 the resupinate pentamerous flower, and to this it 

 is that the placenta is superposed. 



3 The top of the filament is often bent in the 

 bud. The anthers are usually versatile. 



4 Often indefinite. The ovules form two rows, 

 and are descending and anatropous, or incom- 

 pletely campylotropous with their mieropyles up- 



wards and outwards. Certain species have onlj 

 two or three ovules. 



5 While this relation remains unchanged, and 

 remains what it is in Leguminosce generally, the 

 gynseceum when inserted excentrically on the 

 wills of the receptacle, is here on the anterior side 

 of the flower (see Adansonia, ix. fasc. 7). Hence 

 the cavity of the receptacle, which is sometimi 9 

 well marked, is interposed between the placentary 

 edge of the ovary and the vexillary petal ; while 

 in Ainlu ,-s/ifir, on the contrary, the receptacular 

 sac lies between the anterior petals and the 

 gynseceum, which is inserted on its posterior wall. 



