PUOTEACEJE.- 



399 



Synaphea dilatata. 



of variable form; the flowers form simple or compound terminal or axil- 

 lary spikes or racemes, each flower being axillary to a persistent bract. 

 Synaphea 1 (fig. 239) may be defined as Conospermum with resupinate 

 flowers. 2 It is the fertile two-celled stamen that is anterior, while 

 that which is sterile is posterior in this genus. 

 This last is strongly adherent to the stigmatiferous 

 surface of the style which is turned towards it. 

 The two lateral stamens have each one cell sterile 

 and one fertile, and this last, adhering to the corre- 

 sponding half-cell of the median fertile stamen is of 

 course the anterior cell. The perianth is irregular, 

 and the ovary also contains a descending anatropous 

 ovule. Eleven species of Synaphea have been de- 

 scribed, 3 Australian shrubs with a usually short 

 stem and alternate leaves. The flower-spikes may 

 be axillary or terminal, simple or compound, and often on long 

 peduncles. Each flower is axillary to a sessile bract. 



Fig. 239. 

 Diagram. 



The Profeacea? were raised to the rank of an order by A. L. 

 de Jussieu in 1789. 4 Only a very small number of genera allied to 

 Protea were then known ; Banksia and Brabejum of Linn.eus, Em- 

 bothrium of Forster, and Boupala of Aublet. Another genus now 

 referred to this group, Guevina, was then relegated to the Genera 

 incertce sedis. Adanson had as early as 1763 placed the genera Bra- 

 bejum, Protea [Conocarpus), Leucadendron (Lepidocarpus), and Serruria, 

 together 5 in his family Thymelees, close to the order where most 

 botanists of the present day place them. E. Brown, in 1809, was 

 the first to study this fine order seriously, and really establish it, in 

 a memoir which is still famous. 6 Besides the above-named genera he 

 founded no less than twenty new ones : Telopea, Lomatia, Stenocarptts, 

 Kniyhtia, Greviilea, Orites, Bellendena, Bryandra, Hemiclidia, Symphyo- 

 nema, Ayastachys, Franhlandia, Leucospermum, Nivenia, Sorocephalus, 

 Petrophila, Isopoyon, Simsia, 7 Conospermum, and Synaphea. At the same 



1 R. Br., in Trans. Linn. Sac, x. 48, 155; 

 Prodr., 369 ; Suppl., 11 ; Gen. Rem., 606, t. 7. 

 — Poie., Diet., Suppl., v. 270; III., t. 914.— 

 Endl., Gen., n. 2131.— Meissn., Prodr., 314. 



2 White or blue, rarely yellowish, and usually 

 downy, as in Conospermum. 



3 Lindx., Swan Eiv., 32. — Meissn., in Pi. 



Preiss., i. 527 ; ii. 251 ; in Hook. Journ. (1S:>2), 

 183.— Benth. & F. Muell., Fl. Austral., v. 359. 



4 Gen., 78, Ord. iii., Protean. 



5 Fam. des Plant., ii. 284. 



6 On the Froteavea- of Jussieu, in Trans. 

 Linn. Soc, x. (1809). 



7 Endlicuee named it Stirlingia. 



