32 



NATURAL HISTORY OF TLANT8. 



III. AGDESTIS SERIES. 



The flowers of Agdesti^ (fig. 44) are hermaphrodite, regular, 

 tetramerous, with a concave obconical receptacle in which the ovary 

 is contained, while four sepals are epigynically inserted upon the 

 margin ; they are imbricate-clecussate in the bud, reflexed after 

 anthesis. Within the calyx are found an indefinite number of 

 stamens, each formed of a slender filament, and a slightly introrse 

 anther, with two elongated cells attenuated and free towards their 

 two extremities. The inferior ovary has four cells superposed to the 

 sepals, and in each is seen towards the base an ascending ovule with 

 micropyle looking downwards and outwards. The ovary is sur- 

 mounted by a style conical at the base, then cylindrical, erect, sepa- 

 rated above into four curved branches, stigmatiferous within. The 

 fruit is hitherto unknown. The only species of this genus which 

 represents, as is seen, a Phytolacca with tetramerous flowers, and 

 an inferior ovary and carpels all united, is the A. clemaiidea Moq. 

 and Sess., a climbing shrub of Mexico which has the appearance of 

 certain other sarmentose Pl/ytolaccea such as Seguieria, and above 



all Ledenbergia. This plant, consequent^, 

 has not in its organs of vegetation any 

 of the ordinary characteristics of the climb- 

 ins: DilleniacetB with which it was errone- 

 ously connected at a time when the orga- 

 nization of its flowers was very imperfectly 

 known. Its glabrous, slender branches 

 have alternate simple petiolate leaves and 

 flowers collected in the axils of the leaves or 

 at the summit of the branches, in more or 



Longitudinal section of flo.er (4). less ramified racemose cymes. Each slender 



pedicel, like several axes of the inflorescence, 

 bears under the flower two lateral* bractlets. 



Agdestis clemaiidea. 



Fig. 44. 



1 Moq. et Sksp., F1. Me.r. Med. (ex DC, Sj/st., i. 543; Prodr., i. 103).— Endl., Gen., 

 11. 4684— B. H., Gen., 33. 



