FHYTOLACCACEJE. 25 



flowers on one and the same stem. Their number is rarely less, and 

 sometimes greater in the plants cultivated in gardens. Each is com- 

 posed of a unilocular ovary surmounted by an independent style, 

 whose extremity, a little attenuated and bent outwards, is charged 

 with stigmatic papillae. 



In the internal angle of each ovary, and close to its base is found 

 a placenta on which is inserted a single campylotropal ascending 

 ovule, with the niicropyle directed downwards and outwards. 1 In 

 the fruit, accompanied at the base by the persistent perianth, 2 and 

 which is entirely fleshy and pulpy, the carpels are little distinct 

 except quite close to the apex. Each encloses a single seed con- 

 taining under its thick coats a farinaceous albumen surrounded by 

 an almost annular fornicate embryo, with flattened cotyledons adher- 

 ing one to the other by their internal surface, and a conical 

 radicle directed downwards (fig. 27). P. decandra is a perennial 

 herb, found in most of the temperate regions of the globe. The 

 root is a thick taproot (fig. 28). The stems are hollow, with 

 alternate simple, petiolate, exstipulate leaves. Its flowers are arranged 

 in leaf-opposed racemes, each placed in the axil of a bract, and ac- 

 companied by two sterile lateral bractlets, elevated to a variable 

 height upon the pedicel. 



In other species of the genus Phytolacca, the number of stamens 

 is sometimes less than ten, because two, three or even five sepals 

 have only one stamen before them instead of a pair. In others this 

 number rises as high as fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five because inside 

 these five groups of alternisepalous stamens there are five others 

 alternate with them, each formed of one, two or three pieces. 3 In 

 certain species composing the genus Pircunia, the carpels remain free 

 in their whole extent, or nearly so, even in the fruit, and their 

 consistence is less fleshy. Their number may rise to twelve or 

 fifteen, because some of them are reduplicate like the stamens. 

 Some species are frutescent, arborescent, sometimes climbing ; 

 and one of them, which is a moderately large tree, has dioecious 

 flowers. 4 



1 It has two coats. 3 Payee, Oryanog., 304. 



2 Green at first, it takes gradually a reddish 4 P. dioica L., Spec, 632, n. 4. — Plrcunia 

 tint. dioica Moq., Prodr., 30, u. 5. 



