VWPICAGEM. 



501 



little rudimentary globular or obovoid gynseceum. In the female 

 flower the calyx is formed of three four or five sepals, often obovate, 

 cucullate, slightly fleshy. Inside each of these we find, sometimes 

 but not always, a glandular or scaly body, representing a staminode. 1 

 In the centre of the flower is a gynseceum formed as in the Nettles, 

 of a uniovulate ovary surmounted by a tuft of penicillate hairs, 

 which early disappear. The fruit is an achene or a drupe with a 

 scarcely fleshy mesocarp, surrounded by the now succulent calyx. 



Procris WigMiana. 



Fig. 540. 

 Flowering branch (f). 



Within the seed-coats is a fleshy albumen, often thin or even 

 reduced to a membrane ; the embryo is turbinate, with a superior 

 conical radicle, shorter than the elliptical cotyledons. Procris con- 

 sists of some half-dozen species, 2 shrubs or undershrubs from tropical 

 Asia, Africa, and Oceania. They have alternate distichous un- 



1 In certain genera of this series they are much 

 more developed, sometimes forming, as in certain 

 Pileas, leafy blades nearly as large as the sepals to 

 which they are superposed. 



- Foest., Prodr., n. 58 (Dorstenia) ■ Char. 

 Gen., 53 (Elatos/ema). — Pehs., Syn., ii. 556 

 (Bcehmeria). — El., Bijdr., 508. — Miq., PL 

 Jargh. y 23 ; Fl. Ind.-Bai., i. p. ii. 258. 



