MALVACE2E. 



85 



a tolerably large number of secondary genera, having its general 

 organization, and only distinguished from it by very unimportant 

 characters. Their flowers are hermaphrodite and pentamerous, with 

 a very much developed, coloured valvate-reduplicate calyx, provided 

 with five projecting angles or five wings, short in the bud. The 

 petals are little visible, much smaller than the sepals and squamose ; 

 or they are altogether wanting in certain species. Five fertile 

 stamens, slightly monadelphous, are superposed to them, each pro- 

 vided with a short filament and a two-celled anther. 1 They alternate 

 with very short staminodes, which are often entirely wanting. The 

 gynaeceum is composed of five oppositipetalous carpels, or more 

 rarely of three carpels, the two lateral ones being wanting ; and the 

 ovary contains two collateral ascending ovules, with exterior and 

 inferior micropyle and two vertical series of ovules. The style has 

 a stigmatiferous apex, entire or scarcely lobed. The fruit is dry, 

 capsular, and loculicidal; and the seeds, often arillate, 2 enclose 

 under their coats a straight embryo surrounded by a fleshy albu- 

 men. Lasiopetalum consists of Australian shrubs, covered with 

 stellate hairs, with alternate, rarely opposite, entire, dentate sinuous, 

 or rarely lobed leaves, accompanied by very small glanduliform 

 stipules, scarcely visible, or very large and foliaceous. The flowers 

 are grouped in terminal, leaf-opposed or lateral, simple, or compound 

 false-racemes formed of cymes, often uniparous. Each flower is accom- 

 panied by a bract, or by two lateral bractlets, the union of which 

 sometimes resembles a calyx. Twenty species 3 of this genera are 

 described. 



In Lasiojietalum, and the two allied genera, Guichenotia and Lt/sio- 

 petalum, forming with them the subseries {Eulasiopetaleat), the anthers 

 open by very short clefts or pores. In Tkomasiea {Thomasia, figs. 



1 The anthers often have grooves of extrorse 

 dehiscence ; hut their apex turns back upon the in- 

 ternal face of the anther for a short distance, and 

 it is this which makes the dehiscence. The short 

 clefts have been often described as pores (see 

 as to the peculiarities of the anthers of Lasiope- 

 talece, Adansonla, ii. 179; ix. 342). The pollen is 

 the same as that of Theohroma, Guazuma, &c. 

 (H. Mohl., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 2, iii. 334). 



2 The exostome thickens early into a caruncle. 

 Besides which, the raphe also presents an arillate 

 elongated thickening in certain Lasiopetalece. 



3 RUDGE, in Trans. Linn. Soc, x. 297, t. 12. 

 — Venten., Jard. Malmais., t. 59. — Sar., in 

 Andr. Bot. Repos., t. 208. — Steud., in PL 

 Preiss., i. 235. — Steetz., in PL Prelss., ii. 339. 

 — Hook., Journ. Pot., ii. 414. — Tuecz., in Bull. 

 Mosc. (1852), ii. 145.— Hook, v., Fl. Tasm., i. 

 51.— F. Muell., PI. Vict., i. 36 {Corethrostylis), 

 143, t. 3 ; Fragm., ii. 5. — Benth., FL Austral., 

 i. 257. — Bot. Reg. (1844), t. 47 (CoretArosti/lis). 

 —Bot. Mag., t. 176G, 3908.— Walp., Rep., i. 

 336; v. 110; Ann., ii. 164; iv. 321; vii. 437. 



