70 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



composed of five bundles of fertile stamens superposed to the sepals 

 and five staminodes in the form of oppositipetalous petaloid tongues. 

 All these elements are generally united below for a variable distance 

 into a monadelphous urceolate tube. The bundles of fertile stamens 

 are occasionally formed of two, but' more frequently of three, or four, 

 rarely of five, or a greater number of unequal branches, 1 each bearing 

 a two-celled extrorse anther, dehiscing by two longitudinal clefts. The 



Dombeya angulata. 



Fig. 99. 

 Flower. 



Fig. 98. 

 Inflorescence. 



Fig. 100. 

 Longitudinal section of flower (\). 



gynaeceum is free, formed of an ovary with five alternipetalous cells, 

 and more rarely of a smaller number of cells, surmounted by a style 

 more or less deeply divided into a similar number of branches stigma- 

 tiferous above and within. In the internal angle of each cell is found a 

 placenta supporting two collateral or almost super- 

 popuinea. posed and ascending ovules (fig. 100), with micropyle 

 looking downwards and outwards. The fruit is a locu- 

 licidal capsule, formed of from two to five mono- or 

 di-spermous cells ; and the seeds contain under their 

 coats a fleshy albumen enveloping an embryo more 

 or less folded upon itself, with inferior radicle, and 

 large foliaceous bipartite cotyledons. Dombeya con- 

 Fruit (f ). sists of shrubs or bushes of the warmest regions of 



moreover, inseparable from this genus, whose 

 perianth it has. The two stamens of eacli pair 

 are unequal, and have almost cordiform anthers. 

 The ovary is two-celled, with one or two ovules 

 in each cell. 



1 In Astrapcea there are often five fertile 

 stamens, the most exterior being the shortest. 

 The tube which they form is cylindrical or penta- 



gonal. In D. cannabtna (Hook., in Bot. Mag., 

 t. 3619), the type of the genus Silsenbergia, the 

 tube of the androceum is very long and very 

 narrow. The pollen of Dombeya is, according to H. 

 Mohl (in Ann. Sc. Nat., scr. 2, iii. 334), formed 

 of spherical grains covered with short spines, 

 with three equatorial papilla) surrounded by a 

 narrow halo. 



