MALVAGEM. 



103 



In Pachira the same habit and foliage is to be observed, together 

 with large fine flowers having an entire truncate calyx and a long 

 thick coriaceous corolla ; but the five bundles of stamens, often rather 

 indistinct at the base, are each formed of a large number of pieces, 

 with slender filaments and one- celled anthers, straight or simply 

 arched. Moreover, their capsular fruit has not the seeds surrounded 

 by the thick layer of cotton, to the centre of which they were plunged 

 in the preceding genera. All the Pachiras are American. A dozen 

 to fifteen species of them may be enumerated. 



The Baobabs or Adansonias (figs. 169, 170) are very similar to the 

 preceding genera, the flowers being almost the same, with a large 



Adansonia digitata. 



Fig. 170. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



malvaceous corolla ; but their calyx is quinquefid, and the fruit dry, 

 woody, and indehiscent. The numerous seeds are enveloped in an 

 abundant acidulous pulp, which finally dries and becomes farinaceous. 

 The two known species of this genus, one Australian and the 

 other widely spread in the warm regions of Asia and Africa, are trees 

 whose trunks attain gigantic proportions in diameter, their digitate 

 leaves having from three to nine entire folioles. The flowers are 

 axillary and solitary, and hang from the summit of their peduncle, 



