PAT AVERAGES. 



105 



flattened petaloid filament and a basifixed extrorse two- celled anther 

 of longitudinal dehiscence. 1 The gynseceum consists of a whorl of 

 carpels, indefinite in number. The stylar part of each is free, form- 

 ing a flattened band, with its inner surface and edges covered with 

 stigmatic papilla? ; the ovarian division forms a deep gutter, looking 

 inwards, united by its prominent edges to its neighbours to form 

 the projecting placenta?. On both sides of each of these very 

 imperfect septa (which divide only the peripheral part of the cell of 

 the ovary 2 ), are seen the ovules, variable in number, ascending and 

 subanatropous, with the raphe upwards and inwards, and the'^micro- 

 pyle downwards and outwards.' On the outside deep vertical grooves 

 mark the limits of the several carpels. In the dry fruit even the 

 bottom of each groove splits, so that the carpels are isolated ((\g. 

 Ill), each thus resembling a little follicle, and containing several 

 superposed seeds, between which the peri- 

 carp has grown into transverse false-septa. 

 The fruit often breaks up even into one- 

 seeded joints in this way. There is a 

 copious fleshy albumen, near the apex of 

 which is a tiny embryo. P. californicus, the 

 only known species, 4 is an annual herb, often 

 cultivated in our gardens. Its parts are 

 milky ; it has alternate simple entire ex- 

 stipulate leaves, which often become nearly 

 opposite or three-whorled towards the top of 

 the stem. The flowers are solitary, terminal, 5 pedunculate. 



Platystigmd' (fig. 112J has the perianth of Platy.stenwn, and pre- 

 sents but few points of generic difference. The stamens, indefinite 

 or subdefinite in number, 7 have scarcely dilated filaments, and extrorse 



Tlatystigma Hit are 





Fig. 112. 

 Flower (f). 



1 The connective, at first nearly flat, is later 

 on deformed, so as to be slightly hollow on the 

 outside. The pollen forms elongated grains, with 

 three equidistant longitudinal grooves or folds. 



2 " Each placenta divides into two ; each half, 

 on which only one row of ovules developer, 

 inclines towards the neighbouring half of the 

 next placenta, forming with it a sort of chamber- 

 let containing the ovules" (Payee, loc. cit., 221). 



3 These ovules have two coats. They are 

 usually enclosed in the imperfect canal or 

 chamberlet formed by the concavity of each 

 carpel. But here and there we see one or more, 



inserted on the innermost edge of the placenta, 

 projecting into the central cavity of the ovary. 



1 Lixi.L , in Hot. Reg., t. 1679.— BoL Mag , 

 t. 3579, 3730.— Walp., Hep., i. 117. 



' The floral peduncle bears three verticillate 

 bracts at a certain distance from the flower. One 

 of these is fertile, and bears in its axil a shoot 

 that pushes the flower on one side ; hence this 

 last appears opposite to the fertile bract. 



6 Bexth., in Trans. Hort. Soc, ser. 2, i. 

 406. — Berxh., in Linncea, xii. 661— Endl., 

 Gen,, n. 4830.— B. H., Gen., 51, n. 2. 



7 In Meconella Xutt. (in Ton: $■ Gr. Fl. 



