2U 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Ancistrocladus guineensis. 



II. ANCISTROCLADUS SERIES. 



The flowers of Ancistrocladus' (fig. 216) are regular, with a 

 receptacle in the form of a cup, upon the edges of which are inserted 

 five sepals, often unequal, disposed in the bud in quincuncial prse- 

 floration. The androceum is generally formed of ten stamens 

 perigynously inserted like the perianth and superposed, five to the 



sepals, and five, smaller, to the petals. These 

 latter are sometimes wanting. Each is formed 

 of a filament swollen towards its base, and of 

 a two-celled introrse anther, often versatile, 

 dehiscing by two longitudinal clefts. The 

 gynseceum is composed of an ovary, partly in- 

 ferior, and lodged in the cavity of the recep- 

 tacle, surmounted by three divergent styles 

 tapering at the base, 2 and swelling towards 

 their summit into stigmatiferous heads. The 

 apex of the ovary is full, hemispherical or 

 conical, and its lower part is hollowed into a 

 single inferior cell, in which is found one lateral, or almost basilar, 

 ascending anatropous ovule 3 with micropyle looking downwards. 

 The fruit is coriaceous, inclehiscent, monospermous, encased below in 

 the receptacle and surrounded by five sepals growing into more 

 or less rigid membranous wings. The seed encloses under its 

 thin coats a thick coriaceous albumen deeply ruminate, an axile 

 embryo, the cotyledons of which are divaricate, much broader than 

 long, and sometimes truncate at the apex, with an inferior radicle often 

 dilated and truncate at the apex. Ancistrocladus consists of climbing 

 and glabrous shrubs with branches often hooked, and alternate 

 sessile or petiolate, simple, entire, coriaceous, penninerved, reticulated 

 leaves with small stipules, often caducous. The flowers 4 are disposed 

 in ramified clusters of cymes either terminal or borne laterally 



Fig. 216. 



Loupr. sect, of flower. 



1 Wall., Cat., n. 1052 (1828).— Pl., in Ann. 

 Sc. Nat., ser. 3, xiii. 316. — Thw., in Trans. 

 Linn. Sue, xxi. 233, t. 24 j in Joum. Linn. 

 Soc, vii. 111. — B. H., Gen., 191, 981, n. 3. 

 — Schnizl., Iconogr., t. 213. — A. DC., Prodr., 

 xvi. 601 (ord. 29 bis). — Wonnia Vahl, in Scr. 



Nat. Selsk. Kjobenh., vi. (1810), 101 (nee Rottb.) 

 — Bigamea Kcen., mss. ex Endl. Gen., n. 

 6095 (1840).— Dyer, in Fl. of Ltd., i. 299. 



2 Articulate perhaps at this level. 



3 Or incompletely campj'lotropous (?). 



4 Often small, articulate, caducous. 



