8AXIFBA0ACE2E. 



351 



flowers in simple or ramified racemes. The four or five known 

 species 1 inhabit Australia and New Zealand. 



Forgesia borbonica- is a shrub, with flowers formed as in Escallonia 

 except in two points : the petals, slightly united at the base, are 

 valvate, not imbricate ; and the two styles are free, not united. 3 

 The fruit, partially inferior, is a septicidal capsule. 4 All the parts 

 of this shrub are glabrous. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, 

 exstipulate, simple, lanceolate. The flowers form pretty large lax 

 terminal racemes of cymes. 



The flowers of Argophyllum' are regular and hermaphrodite, with 

 the receptacle subconcave or very deep, 6 so that the insertion of the 

 perianth and androceum is subhypogynous or perigynous, according 

 to the species. There are five or six sepals, and as many alternating 

 petals, both sets valvate in the bud. The stamens of the isoste- 

 monous androceum have a small free filament, and an introrse two-celled 

 anther 7 of longitudinal dehiscence. The disk is represented by five 

 flattened persistent valvate fringed blades, applied to the inside of 

 the petals. The nearly superior or partly inferior ovary has five 

 cells superposed to the petals, or only from two to four ; it is sur- 

 mounted by an erect style, whose stigmatiferous head is divided 

 into as many obtuse lobes as there are cells to the ovary. In the 

 central angle of each of these is a placenta, forming a more or less 

 irregular mass inserted by a short narrow stalk. Its whole sur- 

 face is covered with little anatropous ovules. The fruit, surrounded 

 by the desiccated perianth and disk, is a loculicidal capsule opening 

 by as many valves, often bipartite, as there are cells. The seeds are 

 small, with a rugose or foveolate outer coat, and a little axile embryo 

 surrounded by a fleshy albumen. Some four or five species of ArgophyL 



1 Hook., Icon., t. 558. — A. Cpnn., in Tayl. 

 Ann. Nat. Hist., ii. 356. — Hook..f., Fl. Nov.- 

 Zel., i. 78.— Benth , Fl. Austral., ii. 437. — F. 

 Muell., Fragm. Phyt. Austral., ii. 125; iii. 166; 

 vi. 92, 189.— Walp., Ann., vii. 906. 



2 Commeks., ex J., Gen., 164. — DC, Prod,-., 

 iv. 5. — Endl., Gen., n. 4676. — Tul., in Ann. 

 Sc. Nat., ser. 4, viii. 156.— B. H., Gen., 618, n. 

 hO.—Defforgia Lamk., III., 71, t. 125. 



3 The two cells of the ovary are usually com- 

 plete at maturity. 



4 The two horned styles bend back at de- 

 hiscence as far as the remains of the epigynous 

 disk . 



5 Forst., Char. Gen., 29, t. 15. — L. fil., 

 Suppl., 156. — J., Gen.. 161. — G^rtn., Fruct., 

 iii. 149, t. 210.— DC, Prodr., vii. 578.— Ekdl., 

 Gen., n. 4679. — H. Bn., in Adansonia, vi. 9. — 

 B. H., Gen., 646, n. 43. — Schnizl., Iconogr., 

 xv. t. 170. 



6 Often forming an inverted pyramid, as in A. 

 nitidum Labill. In A. elliplicum Labill. (?), 

 on the contrary, it is a shallow cupule, so that 

 the insertion is much more nearly hypogy- 

 nous. 



' The anthers usually stick to the stigmatiferous 

 end of the stvle. 



