24 1 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Bonnelia anceps. 



Fig. 267. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



considerable number of stamens, only united quite at 'their base into 

 a very short ring, with filaments in other respects free, and two- 

 celled anthers, at first introrse, versatile, inserted at the summit of 



the filament by a slightly glandular 

 extremity dehiscing by two longi- 

 tudinal clefts. The gynaeceum is 

 superior, formed of an ovary with 

 two, three, more rarely four cells, of 

 which two are lateral, surmounted 

 by a style with capitate or trifid 

 stigmatiferous extremity. In the 

 internal angle of each cell a large 

 placenta is seen, bearing an indefinite 

 number of ascendent, imbricated 

 ovules, arranged in numerous series. 

 The fruit is a capsule, septicidal in 

 its upper part, with columella nil or short, and a large number of 

 linear seeds, the coats of which enclose a straight exalbuminous 

 embryo. Bonnetia consists of trees of South America. Four or five 

 species 1 of them are known. The leaves are glabrous, subsessile, 

 alternate, with edges involute in vernation. The flowers are disposed 

 in the axil of the superior leaves, upon a peduncle which bears a 

 single flower, or three, forming a cyme, or a larger number, each 

 placed in the axil of a bract, sometimes caducous, sometimes per- 

 sistent, or even developed into a kind of involucre. 



Beside Bonnetia are placed Kichneyera and Archytcea, distinguished 

 from them : the former by its more elongated anthers and descen- 

 dent ovules, arranged in two vertical series, flattened into the com- 

 mencement of a wing in the lower part, where they are imbricated 

 among themselves; the latter, by its stamens united into five 

 very distinct bundles, and by its capsule dehiscing from below 

 upwards. 



Caraipa has also the same flowers, with stamens, the anther of 

 which is introrse, short, and surmounted by a gland, often concave 

 at the apex, and three ovary cells, each containing two descendent 

 ovules, more rarely three or four, with exterior and superior micropyle. 



1 A. S. H., M. Bras. Mer., i. 301.— Tubcz., in Bull. Mosc. (1858), i. 216.— Bentii., in Journ. 

 Linn. Sac, v. 61.— WA1P., Rep., i. 373 ; ii. 801 ; Ann., vii. 375. 



