158 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



are erect or sarmentose climbing shrubs from the west of Tropical 

 Africa. Their leaves are simple, or compound, with three or five 

 leaflets, and their flowers form racemes or corymbs. 



Emblingia calceoloides, 1 an undershrub from West Australia, is 

 quite exceptional among Capparidacea. Its calyx is gamosepalous, 

 irregularly campanulate, with five uneven divisions : it is cleft to the 

 very base between the two anterior sepals. On the opposite side of 

 the flower is seen the corolla reduced to the two posterior petals, 

 which are conjoined into a sort of spoon which is turned backwards. 

 Above the perianth the receptacle is prolonged into a narrow elon- 

 gated bowed column, flattened and concave behind, and supporting 

 at its summit the gynseceum, which owing to the curvature of the 

 column is finally brought down close to its base. Around the ovary 

 the gynophore expands into a sort of frill, with its edges incised into 

 from eig-ht to twelve crenulations or short lobes. The anterior of 

 these, from three to six in number, are obtuse and pubescent ; they 

 perhaps represent staminodes. The posterior (from three to five) 

 bear each an introrse two-celled anther, of longitudinal dehiscence. 

 The ovary is one-celled, with two uniovulate parietal placentas, it is 

 surmounted by a short style, which rapidly enlarges into a two-lobed 

 stigmatiferous scale. The fruit is a little inverted drupe, supported 

 by the now indurated gynophore, having at its base a gland, posterior 

 in position, which existed in the flower. The thin mesocarp sur- 

 rounds a rugose stone, containing a single seed with a fleshy involute 

 embryo. Emblingia calceoloides has simple opposite or sub-opposite 

 leaves, covered with harsh hairs, and solitary axillary flowers, on 

 short slender peduncles. 



III. MJERUA SERIES. 



Mcerua" (figs. 181-1 S3) may be considered as Ritchiea wherein the 

 floral receptacle has become concave, obconical or tubular, bearing on 

 its rim the perianth, and inside the indefinite stamens. Thus Mcerua 



1 F. Muiix., Fragm. Phyt. Ausirul., ii. 2, t. Prodr., i. 254.— R. Be., in Denh. $< Cla^. Vo$. 

 11.— Bekth., Fl.Ausiral.,\. 91.— 3. H., Gen., Jpp., 226. — Em>l., Gin., n. 4998. — Paysb, 

 968, n. 9 a. Fam. Nat., 136.— B. H., Gen., 108, n. 4. 



2 Foesk., Fl. Mgypt.-Arab., 104. — DC, 



