BESEDACE.E. 



295 



petals, which may be reduced to a very narrow simple strap. 1 Above 

 the corolla the receptacle expands into a flattened glandular disk with 

 a fringed edge, which though complete all round is much more marked 

 behind, or else is absent in front and so becomes crescent-shaped.' 



Reseda I 



Fro. 323. 



Fruit (f). 



Fig. 322. 

 Long. sect, of flower. 



Fig. 321. 



Long. sect, of fruit. 



On the free edge or a little lower on its interior surface are inserted 

 the stamens, indefinite and very variable in number, whose sym- 

 metry is no longer apparent when adult* (fig. 322). Each consists 

 of a free filament, and an introrse 2-celled anther of longitudinal 

 dehiscence. 4 The gynaeceum consists of a sessile or stipitate 1 - 

 celled ovary, tapering above into a variable number of stylar horns, 

 each stigmatiferous at its tip. There are usually three or four, more 

 rarely five or six, of variable position. The parietal placentas, of the 

 same number as the styles with which they alternate, project more 

 or less into the ovary, each bearing an indefinite number of descend- 

 ing campylotropous ovules with their micropyles superior and at first 

 introrse. 5 The fruit (fig. 327) is capsular; it opens at the apex by 

 short clefts radiating in a star and alternating with the placentas, 



1 Pater (loc. cit., 194) has seen that the 

 largest and most dissected petals are also the 

 first to appear. As regards the scale at their 

 hase, he remarks, " It is only after all the rami- 

 fications of the petal have appeared, and are 

 already well developed, that we see the origin of 

 a transverse ridge nearly at the base of the petal, 

 a sort of fold which grows very rapidly, and finally 

 forms with the lower part of the petal the scale 

 on whose nature so much has been written. This 

 scale is hence, in fact, only a sort of appendage of 

 the claw, quite analogous to that found on top of 

 the claw of many Cart/ophylfece. 



2 Payer (loc. cit., 195) has seen that this disk 

 (on which, also, so many interpretations have 

 been put) is only a partial swelling of the re- 

 ceptacle, which begins after the birth of the 

 petals. 



3 See Pater, loc. cit., 196. 



4 The pollen consists of ellipsoidal grains, with 

 three folds, which in water become ovoid with 

 three bands. (H. MonL., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 

 2, hi. 326.) 



5 They have two coats. 



