17-1 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Eiiteha arborescens. 



Fig. 191. 

 Flower. 



Corchonts nit ens. 



are, for example, four or five superposed to the sepals and a like 

 number alternate. In a Japanese species, the type of the genus 



Corchoropsis, the stamens with anthers definitely 

 extrorse are not only limited in number, five 

 among them being superposed to the sepals and 

 five or sometimes ten to the petals ; but five of the 

 most interior stamens superposed to the petals 

 become sterile, petaloid, with the form of sub- 

 spathulate tongues. But it is not more necessary 

 to generically distinguish this species from Cor- 

 chorus than it seems to be to separate from the 

 other Limes those species of this latter genus which have petaloid 

 plates within the fertile stamens. 



Another extremely variable character in the 

 genus Core/torus is the form of the fruit. This is 

 generally elongated and siliquiform, the cells 

 having single cavities ; but sometimes it becomes 

 short, even globular, or nearly so, and its cells may 

 be divided by false partitions into demi-cells, or 

 into small secondary cells which separate the seeds 

 one from another. 



The form of the floral receptacle is variable in 

 this genus. Most generally it is raised but very little above the 

 insertion of the perianth, so that the stamens are inserted almost on 



a level with it. But in a certain number of species, 

 generally inseparable however from the others, as 

 C. hirsutus (fig. 193), the receptacle, after bearing 

 the corolla, is elevated in the form of a cylindrical 

 column, the summit being dilated into a kind of 

 flattened capital or circular disk, upon which the 

 gynseceum is placed, surrounded by the insertion of 

 the stamens. It is by this character that the 

 genus Cor chorus intimately connects the preceding 

 types with those which, like Grewia and other 

 genera, that we shall now proceed to studj^, and 

 which have been united into the section of Grcwiece, 

 Fig. 193. believed to be especially characterized by this parti- 



Flowcr, without the i j j i 



perianth (f). cular form of the receptacle, and in which the 



Fig. 192. 

 Flower. 



Co-chorus hirsulus. 



