198 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



or subsessile pluriovulate ovary, 1 tapering above into a style which 

 is lodged in the keel, and is similarly twisted. The surface of the 

 style is often covered with hairs for a considerable distance, and its 

 apex is dilated into a more or less oblique stigmatiferous head 

 (fig. 151). The fruit is a straight or bowed pod, subcylindrical or 

 compressed ; the pericarp, projecting slightly between the seeds, 

 finally opens longitudinally into two valves. The seeds, variable 

 in number, are reniform or ovoidal, attached to the fruit by an 

 elongated ill-developed hilum. Within their coats is a fleshy 

 starchy embryo, whose thick cotyledons are applied together by 

 their flat faces, and whose radicle lies near the middle of the inner 

 border of the seed, next the hilum. The Kidney-beans are erect 

 or twining herbs, rarely woody at the base. Their leaves are alter- 

 nate, pinnately trifoliolate or rarely unifoliolate, with two lateral 

 persistent stipules. Each leaflet has a pedicel, articulated at its 

 base where it is accompanied by one or two stipules. The flowers 

 are collected next the axils of the leaves into simple or multiple 

 racemes. The lower part of the peduncles is bare below. 2 This 

 genus contains some fifty species from all warm countries. 3 



The spiral keel is also found in the two neighbouring species, 

 each forming a genus of itself, namely Minkelersia galactioides Mart. 

 & Zucc, from Mexico, which only differs from Phascolus in the form 

 of the pieces of the perianth and in its inflorescence ; and Phgsostigma 

 venenosum Balf., 4 a native of Africa, known by the name of Calabar- 

 or Ordeal-bean {Feve de Calabar). It has the flowers of Phaseolus, 

 but the style is broadly dilated into a triangular blade above the 

 stigma (fig. 1 54) ; and its voluminous pod contains large seeds with 

 tough coats down one side of which runs a long narrow umbilical 

 cicatrix extending more than half round the seed (fig. 155). 



The keel is obtuse or merely bowed or beaked in / ignea, which 

 subseries comprises besides Vigna the four genera Dolichos, Voandzeia, 

 P achgr hizus, and Psojjhocarp/'s, all very closely allied. The character 



1 The ovules are descending, completely or 

 incompletely campylotropous (fig. 152), with the 

 niicropyle upwards and outwards. They have 

 two coats. 



2 Bentham (loc. cit.) divides this genus into 

 six artificial sections : Drepanospron, Enphci- 

 seolus, Leptospron, Sirophostyles, Macropti- 

 lium, and (?) Dysolobiinu. 



3 J acq., Hurt. Tindob., t. 66, 90, 100, 114; 



Ic. Bar., t. 55S.— Wight, Icon., t. 34, 219, 

 7"."). — Wall., PL Asiat. Par., t. 6, 63. — 

 Bexth., in Mart. Fl. Bras., Papil., 180, t. 49.— 

 Gren. & Godr., Fl. de Fr., i. 457. — Pot. Reg., 

 t. 341, 7 13.— Hot. May., t. 4076.— Walp., Rep., 

 i. 770 j ii. 901; v. 537; Ann., i. 251; ii. 426; 

 iv. 560.— Baker, in Oil ■.. Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 191. 

 4 For the details of this genus and the suc- 

 ceeding ones see the Genera, p. 233. 



