152 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



tropous reniform seeds (figs. 178, 179); within their seed coats' is 

 a fleshy embryo, with a long radicle and narrow cotyledons folded 

 repeatedly on themselves, and containing a little fleshy albumen in 

 their anfractuosities. The Spiny Caper 2 is a shrub with a woody 

 stock, from which arise a large number of flexuous branches covered 

 with alternate simple leaves, whose petiole is accompanied by two 

 lateral stipules, gradually thickened and transformed into spines. 

 Its flowers are solitary axillary, pedunculate. It is a plant from the 

 Mediterranean, cultivated in gardens in France. All the nearest 

 allied species are united with it into the section Eucapparis. 3 



In Sodatlct the flowers and fruit are the same in all essentials, but 

 the stem is bushy, leafless, and spiny. It is now only made a 

 section of Capparis, containing one species from Africa and the East. 



In Capparidastrmn, 5 comprising species from Tropical America, 6 

 the sepals are small, rounded, and imbricated ; the fruit is 

 sometimes cylindroidal, much elongated. In Cj/iiojjhrilla, 1 too, the 

 berries are very long and elongated, but the sepals are bi-seriate, 

 imbricate, and glandular or foveolate at the base. 8 Breyniastrum? 

 also comprises American species, 10 with an oblong fruit ; but the 

 sepals are triangular and spreading, even in the bud. Busbeckia" 

 has also been proposed as a distinct genus ; it comprises species 

 whose broad imbricated petals are united into a gamosepalous calyx, 

 which bursts irregularly on anthesis. They inhabit Australia and 



1 The seed coats are three in number. The 

 outermost is soft and whitish ; the middle one 

 thick, hard, testaceous, brittle, and brown ; the 

 innermost thin and membranous. Towards the 

 organic apex of the seed the triple envelopes form 

 a sort of hollow beak, lodging the radicle. Around 

 this the innermost coat forms a cylindro-conoidal 

 sheath, ending in a little contracted tube. The 

 exostome is seen with difficulty at the extreme 

 apex of the outer coat. Close to it is the hilum, 

 forming a little circular cicatrix, around which is 

 a very little aril, a whitish cellular annular swell- 

 ing of the superficial seed-coat. Though the seeds 

 have been described as lacking albumen, this exists 

 in small quantities, it is true, in the anfractuosities 

 of the numerous folds of the irregularly con- 

 voluted embryo. 



3 [The so-called Caper plant of our English 

 gardens is a Euphorbiad, F. Laihyris L.] 



3 DC, Prodr., sect. i. The fruit varies in 

 form in this section, being sometimes globular, 

 sometimes ovoidal or obovoid. Its species are 



all from the Old World (Deless., Ic. Sel.,t.lQ~ 

 12).—? Petersia Kl., in Pet. Muss., Pot., 1G8, 

 t. 30. 



4 Foesk., Fl. Mgypt.-Arah., 81. This section 

 contains only S. decidua Foesk., which grows in 

 Egypt, Abyssinia, Western Asia, &c. — Del., Fl. 

 d'Fy., 74, t. 2G.— DC, Prodr., i. 215.— 7/^- 

 back Adans., Fann. des PI., ii. 408. 



5 DC, loc. cit., 218, sect. ii. — Ulerveria 

 Bertol., PI. Nov. Rort. Bonon., ii. 8 (ex Walp., 

 Rep., i. 201). 



6 Jacq., Amer., t. 104. 



7 DC, loc. cit., 249, sect. iii. 



8 The species of this section are unarmed, all 

 American (Jacq., op. cit., t. 98, 99). 



9 DC, loc. cit., 250, sect. v. — Breynia Plum., 

 Gen. Amer., t. 16 (nee Forst.). 



10 Jacq., op. cit., t. 100, 105. — Reichb., Ic. 

 Exot., t. 233. 



11 Endl., Prodr. Fl. Ins. Norfolk., 64; Gen., 

 n. 5001. — F. Mtjell., Fl. Yicl., t. iv. suppl. 



