62 NATURAL HISTORY OF TLANTS. 



varying much in thickness and length 1 in the different species, or 



even in the same species, according to the sex, and which bears in 



its upper part ten anthers or more, extrorse, two-celled, dehiscing 



by two longitudinal clefts and arranged without any apparent order 



at maturity. 2 Above these anthers is found the gynaeceum, formed 



of five carpels superposed to the divisions of the perianth. The 



ovaries are independent of each other, one-celled with a parietal 



placenta situated in the internal angle. But the styles and their 



stigmatiferous apex of variable form adhere to each other for a 



certain distance to separate at a certain age. 3 Each placenta bears 



sometimes two ascending anatropous ovules with micropyle exterior 



and inferior, or more generally two ranks of ovules, more or less 



ascending, 4 or subhorizontal. Certain flowers are male (figs. 79-S3) 



or female (figs. 84, 85) according as the carpels or the stamens are 



arrested sooner or later in their evolution. The fruit (fig. 85) is 



formed of five patulous follicles, radiating in a verticil of variable 



consistence opening at a more or less advanced period, mono- or 



polyspermous ; and the organization of the seeds which they enclose 



presents very great differences according to the species. It is by 



the aid of these characters that Sterculia has been grouped into fifty 



sections or subgenera, 5 which are found in all the warm regions of 



the globe. 



Most generally the seed is suborthotropous, or at least very 

 incompletely anatropous ; so that the embryo has the summit of the 

 cotyledons turned towards the hilum, while it is consequently oblique 

 or transverse to the plane of the umbilicus. It is moreover sur- 

 rounded by a fleshy albumen which adheres more or less to the 

 dorsal side of the cotyledons, 6 and to the seminal coats. 7 This is 



1 When this column is slender and very long, 5 See Schott, Meletem,., loc. cit. The greater 

 it is often bent in the bud (figs. 80-82). part of the sections have been considered as dis- 



2 A generic value has been given to this tinct genera in this work. 



want of regularity in the arrangement of the 6 The embryo occupies by its cotyledons all 



androceum at maturity. But earlier the stamens », the extent of the seminal cavity (and often even 



have a particular order of arrangement, as we more), wdiich obliges it to bend in a transverse 



have described (in Adansonia, x. 162). The section the albumen, and appears separated into 



pollen, ovoidal, with three folds, when in water, two parts, which resemble thick cotyledons, 

 becomes spherical, with three papillose hands 7 As many as four layers may here be dis- 



(H. MonL., in Ann, Sc. Nat., ser. 2, lii. 334). tinguished; a fleshy mucilaginous epidermis, a 



3 We may suppose, then, that there is but thin membrane surrounding the albumen, and 

 one capitate style, the ovaries remaining free. between them a plate often double, thick coloured, 



4 In this case the micropyle looks downwards and generally testaceous within, 

 and outwards. The coat is double. 



