PHYTOLACCACEJB. 57 



Glabrous trees or shrubs ; leaves alternate petiolate : stipules 

 minute, tuberculiform or glanduliform, sometimes developed into 

 indurated recurved prickles ; flowers in compound much ramified 

 racemes terminal or axillary; bracts 1 -flowered ; bractlets 2, lateral 

 [Tropical America). Seep. 37. 



14. Adenogramma Eeichb. — Flowers hermaphrodite, apetalous; 

 sepals 5, imbricate. Stamens 5 ; filaments free or connate at 

 base in short cupule ; anthers introrse, 2-rimose. Ovary oblique, 

 conical, 1 -celled ; style slender, apex capitellate stigmatiferous ; 

 ovule 1, campylotropous, inserted at the summit of a slender sub- 

 basilar erect funicle. Fruit dr}', obliquely conical ; pericarp smooth 

 or granulate, usually coriaceous, blackish, indehiscent or longi- 

 tudinally dehiscent. Seed straight or curved ; testa membranous ; 

 embryo arched or uncinate, encircling a fleshy albumen. — Dif- 

 fuse herbs ; branches slender sub-2-chotomous ; leaves in false 

 verticils simple, usually narrow ; stipules small or very small ; 

 flowers small in umbelliferous axillary and terminal cymes {South 

 Africa). See p. 38. 



V.? THELYGOXE.E. 



15. Thelygonurn L. — Flowers monoecious. Male calyx 2-phyllous, 

 valvate ; leaves finally revolute. Stamens co, inserted on short 

 receptacle; filaments capillary, finally cernuous ; anthers linear,' 

 2-celled, introrse, 2-rimose, versatile. Female calyx at the apex 

 finally eccentric, tubular ; apex 3-dentate ; base laterally increased 

 and gibbous. Ovary eccentric, subglobose ; ovule 1, subbasilar, 

 campylotropous ; style lateral, subbasilar (gynobasic), erect in tube 

 of perianth, apex clavate, stigmatiferous. Fruit drupaceous ; meso- 

 carp thin ; seeds suberect, hippocrepiform ; embryo uncinate, 

 encircled within and without by a fleshy albumen ; radicle cylindro- 

 conical, inferior ; cotyledons narrow, incumbent. — An annual sub- 

 succulent herb ; leaves alternate ; inferior ones opposite, simple and 

 penninerved ; petiole dilated at the base into a stipuliform in- 

 cised sheath ; flowers in axillary glomerules ; males ebracteate l-oo ; 

 females often 3 -nates, or go, pluribracteolate {Mediterranean region). 

 See p. 39. 



