SAXIFRAGACEJE. 



365 



spreading or recurved, petaloid or greenish. Alternate with these 

 are inserted as many petals on the throat of the receptacle ; they are 



Hibes ruhriiM (Bed currant.) 



Fig. 431. 

 Flowering branch. 



Fig. 432-35. 

 Leaves, various states. 



often small and included, either not in contact or of imbricate prse- 

 floration. There are as many stamens, alternating and inserted with 

 the petals ; their filaments may be short and hidden between the 

 petals, or long and exserted ; the anthers are two-celled, subglobular 

 or didymous, more rarely elongated-oval, introrse, of longitudinal 

 dehiscence. 1 The ovary is surmounted by a style with two branches, 

 that separate at a very variable height, and end in a stigmatiferous 

 dilatation. They alternate w r ith the two parietal placentas, which 

 bear anatropous ovules, arranged in several rows when adult. Their 

 number may be indefinite, or very inconsiderable ; and this character, 

 together w r ith others derived from the form and length of the recep- 

 tacle, calyx, and androceum, has been used to distinguish genera, 



1 The pollen consists in the species that have having from eight to ten irregularly scattered 

 been examined, especially B. Grossularia, rubrum, pores. (H. Mohl., in Ann, 8c, Nat,, ser. 2, iii. 

 nigrum, &c., of finely dotted spherical grains, 328.) 



