•_':;ii 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Thea chinensis. 



imbricated in praefloration. The androceum is formed of an indefinite 

 number of stamens, the filaments adhering to the base of the corolla 1 

 and united among themselves for a short variable distance below, or 

 almost entirely free, especially in the most interior stamens, the anthers 



of which first extrorse, then versa- 

 tile, have a thick connective, oval 

 or almost cordiform, bearing on the 

 edges two narrow cells, each dehis- 

 cing by a longitudinal cleft. 2 The 

 gynaeceum is superior, free, com- 

 posed of an ovary generally three- 

 celled, surmounted by a hollow 

 style, divided at a variable part 

 of its height into three tubular 

 branches, the summit furnished 

 with a small surface of stigmatife- 

 rous tissue. In the internal angle 

 of each ovary cell (superposed when 

 they are three in number, to the 

 sepals 1, 2, 3) there is a placenta 

 generally supporting four ovules, incompletely anatropous, 3 more or 

 less descendent, and arranged in pairs in such a way that the two 

 ovules of each pair turn back to back, and look at each other by 

 their short raphe (fig. 252). The fruit long, green, and fleshy, 

 becomes at length a loculicidal capsule (fig. 248) with three or a 

 smaller number of cells each containing one or two seeds. These 

 enclose under their thick coats 4 a large fleshy oily embryo, the plano- 

 convex cotyledons of which completely surround the gemmule. 



In certain Teas the petals and the stamens are united into a tube 

 for a greater distance. The ovary cells are three or four in number, 



Fig. 251. 

 Gynaeceinn (-*-). 



Fig. 252. 



Gynasceum, one cell 



open. 



(in Soc. Phys. de Gen., xiv. 149).— Pater, 

 Organog., 532, t. 149.— B. H., Gen., 187.— H. 

 Bn., in Payer Fam. Nat., 265. — Seem., in Trans. 

 Linn. Soc, xxii. 347 (inch : Calpandri i Bi., 

 Camellia L., Cordyloblaste Hensch. (?), Sas- 

 sangua Nees). — Tsia K^mpf., Amcen., 606. — 

 Aimns., Fam. des PI., ii. 450. 



1 This adherence is very slight or almost nil in 

 the five stamens more anterior than the others 

 and superposed to the petals ; or in five groups of 

 several stamens, the number of which is variable, 

 each keeping the same place. 



2 The pollen grains are ovoid with three folds, 

 and in water they become spherical with three 

 bands, and bear three papillae. (H. aIohl., in 

 Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 2, iii. 333.) 



3 They have two coats. 



4 The exterior is hard, crustaceous, brown or 

 blackish. It often has faces due to the reciprocal 

 pressure of the different neighbouring grains. 

 Within is found another coat, much softer, some- 

 times almost suberose, traversed by five fibro-vas- 

 cular ramified bundles. 



