218 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Noranlea guianensis. 



Their number is very variable in the different species, sometimes 

 there are only from six to nine, 1 elsewhere from ten to fifteen, but 

 most usually they are much more numerous, and indefinite. The 



gynrcceum is free and superior; it is formed of 

 a sessile ovary, frequently ovoid with the upper 

 extremity surmounted by a small cone of stig- 

 matic tissue, entire or grooved by longitudinal 

 fluting but little apparent. The ovary is divided 

 into a number of complete or incomplete cells, 

 varying from four to eight or ten ; and in the in- 

 ternal angle of eacli cell a placenta 2 is seen, divided 

 into several ramified plates bearing small ovules 

 incompletely anatropal, transverse or ascendent, 

 and indefinite in number. The fruit is globular 

 or nearly so, with suberous fleshy thick pericarp, 

 indehiscent or loculicidal towards the base. It 

 encloses numerous elongated seeds, containing 

 under their coats, which are reticulated without, a 

 fleshy embryo with cotyledons often shorter than 

 the radicle. Marcgravia consists of shrubs of 

 tropical America, almost always climbing or epiphytal. They 

 have two kinds of branches ; some sterile bearing distichous sessile 

 leaves often provided with two glands, but slightly prominent 

 towards the base of the limb which adheres by its inferior face to 

 the neighbouring objects ; others, free and floriferous, are provided 

 with leaves of different forms, alternate, entire, thick coriaceous, and 

 exstipulate. 3 The inflorescence is in terminal racemes. The prin- 

 cipal axis bears a variable number of flowers (collected together 

 almost in umbels) pedicellate, 4 often inserted obliquely at the summit 

 of the pedicel, and provided, quite against the flower, with two lateral 

 bractlets similar to the sepals. It is prolonged above and bears a 



Fig. 278. 



Bud and its raised 

 axilc bract (|). 



1 Especially in the M. oligandra Geiseb. 

 {Cat. PI. Cub., 39), a species of the Antilles, 

 where the stamens, when they are eight in 

 number, for example, are arranged symme- 

 trically with reference to the antero-posterior 

 plane of the flower. When the stamens are nume- 

 rous they appear sometimes all disposed on the 

 same verticil; elsewhere there are several anterior 

 to the other, and the flattened filaments being 

 partly covered by those of the latter. The true 

 symmetry of the androceum is unknown to us. 



2 Which is prolonged above into a short 

 channel representing the style, and forms there 

 a sort of pointed radiating crest. 



3 Articulated at the base. 



4 The base of the pedicel is articulated. If 

 there is no bract at the level of this articulation 

 in the fertile pedicels, it is perhaps as we have 

 indicated above, that it is elevated to the flower, 

 or figures as the anterior sepal. 



