144 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Australia. 1 The leaves are alternate, bipinnate, with few, rather broad, 

 coriaceous leaflets. The flowers are grouped in terminal ramified 

 racemes ; the pedicels, articulate at the base, are each axillary to a 

 caducous bract. 



At the end of this series we place Braadzeia fhcifolia- (figs. 135- 

 137), whose affinities with Mimosea and Euccesalpiniets* are incontest- 

 able, and which has, with the regular flowers of the preceding 

 genera, a receptacle yet more concave 4 than in Ergt/trojjhloeum, and a 



Bra ndzeia filicifolia. 



IkAdb 



Fig. 136. 

 Flower (^). 



Fig. 137. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



more broadly imbricated calyx. The sepals are lour 5 or five in 

 number ; and the petals 6 which are also imbricated, taper below 

 into long claws. The ten stamens, all fertile, are superposed to the 

 leaves of the perianth. Each consists of a free involute filament 

 finally exserted, and an introrse two-celled anther with a glandular 

 connective. The central g3'na?ceum consists of a stipitate pluriovulate 

 ovary, 7 surmounted by a style whose stigmatiferous apex is slight ly 

 dilated. The pod is of variable size, often oblong compressed, covered 

 with rusty-coloured velvety down ; bordered with somewhat pro- 

 minent sutures, rarely flat, but more often irregularly knobbed on 



men. is F. guineense Don. We find it undis- 

 tineuishable from Mavia judicialis Beetol. F., 

 a plant from the east coast, of which we liave 

 only an imperfect specimen before us [see also 

 Oliv., Fl. Trop. Aft:, ii. 320]. 



1 F. chlorostackys. — E. Lahoucheri Benth., 

 Fl. Austral., ii. 297. — Laboucheria chloro- 

 stachys F. Muell., luc. cit., 159. 



2 H. Bn., in Adansonia, vs.. 215, t. vi. 



3 It might strictly have been placed in this 

 series, for it comes very near C&salpinia, differ- 



ing mainly in the greater regularity of its corolla 

 and in its non-declinate filaments, nude at the 

 base. 



4 With a lining of glandular tissue, whose 

 margin is divided into ten little crenulations. 



5 In this case there is one larper than the 

 rest, and evidently representing two leaves. 



6 Whose number may also be reduced to four. 

 " There are usually from ten to twelve 



obliquely descending ovules in two vertical 

 rows. 



