>5fc 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Phyllonoma rnscifolium. 



anthers of longitudinal dehiscence. The gynaeceum is free in great 

 part or entirely ; it consists of an elongated two-celled ovary, tapering 

 above into a style which early divides into two branches, erect or 

 reflexed, and stigmatiferous at the apex. In the ventral angle of 

 each cell is a multiovulate placenta. The fruit is a septicidal bivalve 

 many-seeded capsule. The seeds are elongated, numerous and with 

 a laxly membranous testa, or few with a smooth crustaeeous testa. 

 The fleshy albumen surrounds a cylindroidal embryo. Itea comprises 

 five species 1 of trees and shrubs from North America, and Temperate 

 Eastern and Central Asia. Their leaves 2 are alternate petiolate exstipu- 

 late simple, oblong or lanceolate, with glandular teeth or crenulations. 

 The flowers are numerous, in axillary or terminal simple racemes. 

 Pliyllonomc? has very small flowers, resembling those of Berenice, 



Carpodetas, Itea, &c, with a concave, ob- 

 conical or obpyramidal receptacle bearing 

 on its edges five little toothlike sepals, 

 five triangular valvate petals, and five 

 alternating stamens 4 with introrse didymous 

 anthers. The inferior ovary is surmounted 

 by a style with two short branches stig- 

 matiferous at the apex ; 5 it contains two 

 pluriovulate parietal placentas alternating 

 with the stylar lobes. 6 A thick fleshy 

 disk covers the whole ovary. The fruit 

 is fleshy, crowned by the scar of the peri- 

 anth ; it contains one or more seeds with a 

 fleshy albumen, near the apex of which is 

 a short embryo. Two or three species 7 are 

 known, shrubs from Mexico and Columbia, 

 in aspect like certain Celastrads, with elongated alternate petiol- 



Fig. 411. 

 Flowering branch. 



1 Hook. & A en., Beech. Voy., Pot., t. 39.— 

 Toee. & Ge., Fl. N. Amer., i. 590.— A. Geay, 

 Man., ed. 5, 146— Chapm., Fl. S. Unit. States, 

 155. — Bexth., FL Hongkong., 128. — Walp, 

 Ann., vii. 908. 



2 Caducous in the two species with crusta- 

 ceous seeds, the one American, the other Japan- 

 ese. 



3 W., ex Rcem. & Sch., Syst. Teg., vi. 210 — 

 B. H., Gen., 648, n. 49.— Bulongia H. B. K., 

 Nov. Gen.et Spec.,\\.1Q, t. 623. — Endl., Gen., n. 



5699. — H. Bsr., in Adansonia, v. 293, 294; vi. 

 12. 



4 Inflexed in the bud. 



5 They are antero-posterior. The ovary recalls 

 that of the Cornels and Umbellifers, or even certain 

 Rhamnads, near which this genus has also been 

 placed. 



6 We have usually seen six ovules on each 

 placenta, arranged in two vertical rows. 



7 Tukcz., in Pull. Mosc. (1858), i. 454.— 

 Walp., Pep., i. 539 {Dulongia) ; vii. 908. 





