8AXIFBAGACE2E. 391 



cell are formed as in all the preceding genera ; but the petals are very 

 small, squamiform, subspathulate, geniculate, and swollen at the 

 base ; and the two styles are greatly developed, long and exserted, 

 tapering to the articulated base, and expanded at the top into a large 

 thick lobulate stigma, more or less folded on itself. The fruit is a 

 capsule. This plant is a small glabrous tree from Hongkong, with 

 persistent alternate leaves, possessing two little caducous stipules- 

 The small flowers are grouped in little axillary racemes. 1 



Tetrathyrum subcordatiim, 2 a shrub from the same country, has 

 alternate ovate-oblong cordate leaves, coriaceous and persistent, and 

 small numerous flowers in axillary capitula, with the same general 

 organization, the hollow obconical receptacle lodging a two-celled 

 ovary, in great part free, with uniovulate cells, surmounted by two 

 subulate styles. And its fruit is a bivalve capsule. But the rim 

 of the receptacle only gives insertion to five calycine leaves, 

 valvate and subpetaloid, while the corolla is completely lost. In 

 front of the sepals are five superposed stamens ; their anthers dehisce 

 longitudinally, the walls diverging from the cleft on either side, and 

 they are surmounted by a long prolongation of the connective. 

 Between each stamen and its neighbour projects a pair of rounded 

 pubescent perigynous glands, free or united at the base. 



The corolla is also quite absent in the four following genera, 

 while the calyx, often reduced in size, presents great varieties in the 

 number of its parts. This is especially marked in Sycojjsis Gnffith- 

 iana, 3 a tree (?) from Khasia, with nearly the foliage of Emtigma. 

 Its flowers are monoecious ; the gynseceum is in great part superior, 

 with ovules of Hamamelis ; 4 there are also eight stamens, but of a 

 longitudinal dehiscence ; while the perianth in both males and 

 females is irregularly and obliquely incised into unequal teeth and 

 lobes. Parrotict was known for a longer time as an apetalous repre- 

 sentative of Hamamelis. In fact its leaves, polygamous flowers, 

 fruits (fig. 467), and seeds have the same general structure. But 



1 The bractlets, inserted below the articulated 4 The position of the niicropyle varies with age; 

 ovary, form a little involucre, and each flower is at first it looks upwards and inwards, and may 

 at first hidden in its mother-bract. continue to do so permanently. 



2 Fl. Hongkong., 132.— B. H., Gen., 668, n. 5 C. A. Mey., Verz. Pjl. Caucas., 46.— 

 10. Endl., Gen., u. 4592. — H. Bs„ in Adansonia, 



3 Oliv., in Trans. Linn. Soc, xxiii. 83, t. 8.— v. 299; in Pager Fam. Nat., 345.— B. H., Gen., 

 B. H„ Gen., 666, n. 4.— Waip., Ann., vii. 935. 666, n. 1. 



