390 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



The same irregularity occurs in the disk, which is nearly or quite 

 absent behind, and is only represented by the two anterior glands. 1 

 Finally Bellendena, whose flower becomes nearly regular, has no hypo- 

 gynous disk at all. Its ovules are orthotropous, descending, but 

 placed one above the other, or nearly so, and the dry indehiscent fruit 

 is surmounted by a sort of hook formed by the persistent base of 

 the style. 



II. BANKSIA SERIES. 



Banfaia? (figs. 227-231) has regular hermaphrodite flowers. The 

 perianth consists of four valvate leaves, free or united below. As 

 in all the preceding genera the four stamens are inserted on the 

 concavity near the summit of the perianth-leaves ; they are almost 

 reduced to their two-celled introrse anthers, which dehisce by two 

 longitudinal slits. 3 The gynaeceum, surmounted by four hypog} r nous 

 glands, consists of a sessile biovulate ovary surmounted by a long 

 slender style with a stigmatiferous apex. Next come the characters 

 which have led authors to make Banksia the type of a separate series 

 or tribe. The posterior parietal placenta bears two collateral ascending 

 subanatropous ovules, whose micropyles look downwards and outwards. 

 The fruit (figs. 230, 231) is compound ; the common axis of the inflo- 

 rescence becomes thick and woody so as to form a sort of cone or elon- 

 gated strobilus, bearing a large number of woody follicles, surrounded 

 by the remains of the flowers and half sunk in the substance of the 

 rachis. Each follicle, compressed and bivalve, opens by a usually trans- 

 verse or oblique cleft ; and is divided into two half-cells by a free bifid 



1 Adenostephanus (Kl., in Linnaa, xv. 51 ; 

 — Exdl., Gen., n. 2149; — Meissn., Prodr., 

 436 ; — Euplassa Salisb.; Dickneckeria Velloz., 

 Fl. Flumin., 1, t. 105;— Bidymanthus Kl.), 

 whose fruit is unknown, should we think be placed 

 in the genus Guerina, of which it has the leaves 

 inflorescence and habit, besides its flowers being 

 slightly irregular at the base. The disk, too, 

 though described as surrounding the whole 

 base of the pistil, is not quite regular ; it is cer- 

 tainly wantiug behind in the few species we have 

 been able to examine. Eight species of this ge- 

 nus have been described from Brazil and Guiana. 

 (See Meissx., in Mart. Fl. Bras., Prot., 92, t. 

 34-36). But here perhaps should be the place for 

 Kermadecia (Be. & Gb. iu Bull. Soc. Pot., x. 



228; in Asm. Sc. Nat., ser. 5, i. 344; in Nouv. 

 Arch. Mus., iv. 10, t. 1), of which three species 

 are known, all from New Caledonia. They have the 

 flowers of Guevina, with a perianth of oblique 

 insertion and a nearly semicircular anterior disk. 

 The leaves are simple, as in Andripetalum and 

 certain species of Poupala ; but this last charac- 

 ter cannot be of generic value. The fruit is but 

 little known ; probably indehiscent, as in Guevina. 



2 L. t., Suppl., 127 (nee Foest., nee Bbttcb, 

 nee Domb., nee Kcex.) — Lamk., Diet., i. 368. — 

 R. Be., in Trans. Linn. Soc., x. 202; Prodr., 

 391 ; Suppl, 34.— Endl., Gen., n. 2157. — 

 Meissx., Prodr., 451. 



3 K. Bhowx Las described the pollen of several 

 Banksias as consisting of elliptical grains. 



