352 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



lum are known, 1 shrubs from Australia, and especially New Cale- 

 donia, covered with silky down of sometimes submetallic lustre. 

 The leaves are alternate, petiolate, simple, entire or dentate, 

 exstipulate. The flowers form ramified corymbiform racemes, 

 axillary or terminal. 



Carpodetus serrafus," a shrub from New Zealand, is scarcely generi- 

 cally distinct from Argophyllum. Its narrow sepals do not touch j 

 and its ovary, lodged inside the short everted funnel-shaped re- 

 ceptacle, is surmounted by a glandular disk with five scarcely 

 prominent lobes, opposite to the petals, but not lining them with a 

 fringed scale. The number of cells in the ovary varies from three 

 to five, superposed to the petals in the latter case. In the ventral 

 angle of each is a placentary mass, inserted by a short straight 

 pedicel, and covered with ovules. The fruit is coriaceous, slightly 

 fleshy, dehiscent, crowned by the circular cicatrix of the perianth. 

 The cells contain an indefinite number of small descending seeds, 

 with a foveolate outer coat, surrounding a fleshy albumen which lodges 

 a small embiwo near its apex. The leaves of this plant are alternate, 

 petiolate, simple, with glandular teeth, and small stipules which are 

 very inconspicuous at maturity. The flowers are in branching 

 cymes, axillary, or terminal and leaf-opposed. 



Berenice argufa, 3 a small undershrub from Bourbon, has nearly 

 the flowers of Carpodetus, with a concave hemispherical receptacle 

 lodging the ovary, five sepals, five valvate petals, and five epigynous 

 stamens with introrse anthers. From the centre of the flat or 

 depressed roof of the ovary rises an entire style, ending in a large 

 stigmatiferous head. There are three or four cells, and in the centre 

 of each is a multiovulate placenta forming a lobe with a cylindrical 

 stalk. The fruit, crowned with the persistent sepals, is a depressed 

 capsule, opening above by triangular loculicidal valves. The numerous 

 rugose seeds contain a fleshy albumen, with an axile placenta. This 

 plant has slender branches, with alternate simple serrulate leaves. 



1 Labill., Sert.Austro-caled., 37, t. 40,41. — 

 F. Mttell., Fragm., iv. 33; 177; vi. 188. — 

 Bexth., Fl. Austral., ii. 436. — Walp., Ann., vii. 

 970. 



2 Fobst., Char. Gen., 33, t. 17. — J, Gen., 

 382.— Spbeng., PugiU., i. 20.— DC, Prodr., ii. 

 29. — A. Ctjnn., in Ann. Nat. Hist., iii. 247. — 



Endl., Gen., n. 5691.— Hook., Icon., t. 564.— 

 Fenzi, in Begensb. BenTc., 3, 1. 12. — B. H., Gen., 

 646, n. 44. — Schnizl., Iconogr., xvii. t. 170. — 

 Walp., Ann., vii. 907. 



3 Tcl., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 4, viii. 156. — 

 B. H., Gen., 646, n. 42.— Walp., Ann,, vii. 907. 



