394 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



frill representing a disk, with a few unequally arranged little leaves, 

 the sole vestige of the calyx. These flowers are grouped on a common 

 receptacle into a capitulum, surrounded by a large number of imbri- 

 cated dissimilar bracts arranged in a spiral. The outer ones are 

 short, 1 broad, coriaceous-sessile, enlarging from without inwards. 

 The innermost are petaloid, coloured, long-tapering at the base. 2 

 Each stamen consists of a free filament and a basifixed anther, with 

 two elongated adnate cells ; it dehisces by two longitudinal clefts, 

 lateral or slightly introrse. The ovary is free in the greater part of 

 its extent, 3 surmounted by two elongated caducous styles, stigmati- 

 ferous at the apex. In the ventral angle of each of the two 

 (complete or incomplete 4 ) cells of the ovary are found numerous 

 anatropous ovules, in two vertical rows ; they are descending, with 

 their micropyles turned upwards and outwards. The fruit is dry 

 and woody, bicuspidate, bivalve, and polyspermous. The seeds are 

 compressed, angular, thin, and imbricated at the edges. Their 

 internal structure is unknown. Two species of Rhodoleia have been 

 described, one from China, 5 the other from Sumatra. 6 They are little 

 glabrous trees, with persistent alternate leaves, simple, entire, 

 coriaceous, glaucous below, petiolate and exstipulate. The floral 

 capitula are borne each on a thick recurved peduncle. 



XVII. LIQUIDAMBAE SERIES. 



Liquidambar 1 (figs. 471-474) has its unisexual monoecious 8 flowers 

 grouped in capitula and spikes. The axis of the male inflorescence 



1 Covered with down on their exposed surfaces. 



2 From two to four of these bracts are inserted 

 innermost, close outside the flower and near the 

 disk, and seem to form a partial unilateral corolla 

 to their flower. 



3 The lower part, containing some ovules, is 

 inferior as regards the disk, hence the insertion 

 of the androceum is slightly perigyuous. 



4 Especially incomplete below, where often 

 the placentas do not even touch. Higher up 

 they are more or less fused in the Sumatran 

 species, but in the Chinese they are only in con- 

 tact, and may be separated without rupture; 

 thus they are really parietal, as in so many of 

 the Saxifragacece. 



5 R. Championi Hook., loc. cit. — Lem., Jard. 



FL, i. t. 4.— Seem., Rot. Herald, 380. — V. 

 Houtte, Fl. des Serres, vi. 87, t. 561.— Benth., 

 Fl. Hongkong., 141. — Walp., Ann., ii. 273 ; v. 

 89; vii. 936. — R.formosa Champ, (ex Hook.). 



6 R. Teysmanni MlQ., loc. cit. — Waxp., Ann., 

 v. 87. 



7 L., Gen., n. 1076.— J., Gen., 410. — G^BTN., 

 Fruct., ii. t. 90. — Lamk., Diet., iii. 532 ; Suppl., 

 iii. 456 ; III., t. 783.— Ekdl., Gen., n. 1902.— 

 H. Bn., in Payer Fam. Nat., 348; in Adan- 

 sonia, x. fasc. 4. — Clarke, in Ann. and Mag. 

 Nat. Hist. (1858), 1.— B. H., Gen., 669, n. 15.— 

 Lem. & Dcne., Tr. Gen., 520 (iucl. Altingia 

 Noeonh., Sedgwickia Geiff.). 



8 Sometimes polygamous in our cultivated 

 plants. 



