TEBNSTBCEMIACE^J. 



249 



small number of pedicels, terminated by a flower which is but little 

 developed, sometimes even quite aborted. In the length of the exte- 

 rior edge of these pedicels an adnate bract is seen in the form of a 

 narrow elongated sac, claviform or hood-shaped, or like a reversed 



Ruyscliia corallina. 



Fig. 280. 

 Flower (f ). 



Fig. 279. 

 Bud and its axile bract. 



Fig. 281. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



urn, with hollow spur, the bottom turning upwards, pointed or ob- 

 tuse, the narrow opening near the base of the pedicel looking down- 

 wards and outwards, and the interior surface secreting a sweet or 

 bitter 1 nectar. From twelve to fifteen species 2 of Marcgravia have 

 been described. 



Beside this genus is placed Norantea (fig. 278) which, with the 

 same organs of vegetation and alternate leaves, have flowers all fer- 

 tile arranged in racemes or spikes, and all accompanied by an axile 

 sacciform bract raised more or less with the pedicel, but not united 

 with it by its limb, the opening being first turned outward and 

 downward. 3 The sexual organs are nearly those of Marcgravia, 

 but the verticils of the perianth are pentamerous, and the petals are 



1 Among all the interpretations proposed for 

 tbis sort of ascidia, the only one , admissible for 

 us appears to be that described by Teiana and 

 Planchon in their Prodromus, or in a special 

 work, " Sur les bractees des Marcgraviees," in- 

 serted in volume ix. of Mem. de la Soc. Imp. des 

 Sc. Nat. de Cherbourg, and where the bnct, 

 adnate to the sterile pedicel by the upper face of its 

 midrib, will have suffered a deformation so that the 

 upper face, extremely arched above, would repre- 

 sent the convex surface, 'and its inferior face the 

 secreting cavity of the ascidium, and its edges those 

 of the opening turned downwards and outwards. 



2 L., Spec, ii. 562.— Jacq., Amer., 156, t. 

 96. — K., Synops., iv. 234. — Hook., Bxot. Fl„ 

 t. 160. — Getseb., Ft. Brit. W.-Ind., 110; Cat. 

 PI. Cub., 39.— Te. & Pl., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 

 4, xvii. 360. — Walp., Rep., i. 399; ii. 811; 

 v. 146 ; Ann., i. 129; vii., 360. 



3 It is only then that the bract becomes more 

 or less ascendent (as in fig. 278), and that the 

 opening of the sac which it represents, first 

 exterior and inferior, becomes interior and 

 superior. 



