382 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



above, according- to their internal angle, and gaping within the 

 summit, while their bases are united by means of the receptacle then 

 become dry and pentagonal. The seeds, variable in number, are 

 arched and triangular ; they contain under their coats a fleshy oily 

 albumen surrounding a large embryo with fleshy conical radicle. The 

 Hues are perennial herbs or undershrubs. All their parts are endowed 

 with a penetrating, often disagreeable odour, proceeding from trans- 

 lucid reservoirs of essential oil, more or less prominent, with which 

 all the organs are charged. The leaves are alternate compound tri- 



foliolate, pinnatisect or decompound, exstipulate. 1 

 Their flowers are disposed at the summit of the 

 branches in cymes, pluriparous at the commence- 

 ment, and generally becoming uniparous towards 

 the circumference. In the Rues proper it is fre- 

 quently the case that the central flower of the cyme 

 is pentamerous ; the others, although organized the 

 same, becoming tetramerous. In those constituting 

 Haplojjltyllum? the leaves are generally simple ; 3 the 

 petals entire ; the flowers almost constantly pentamerous ; and the 

 ovules few in number in each carpel. 4 In Muta pinnata the ovary 

 is divided into four or five cells through almost the whole height ; 

 and the fruit only opens incompletely at the summit (fig. 39S), or 

 even not at all. Thus formed, the genus Rue comprehends some 

 forty species, 5 all natives of the Mediterranean region and of centro- 

 western Asia. 



In But a albiflora, a small species of cool India and Japan, the 

 delicate leaves of which are bipinnate, the flowers are white and 

 small, united in a raceme of terminal cymes, tetramerous with four 

 or six stamens, and the gynaeceum supported by a slender foot 



Fig. 398. 



Fruit dehiscent at 



summit (|). 



1 . 



1 In certain species- the two inferior lobes of 

 the leaf inserted quite against the branch seem 

 to take the place of these organs. 



2 A. Juss., in Mem. Mus., xii. 464, t. ]7, 

 fig. 10 (Aplophyllum). — Deless., Ic. Set., iii. 

 t. 43, 44.— Em., Gen., n. G02S.-Sp.hii, 

 Consp. Gen. Haplophyllum (in Ann. Sc. Nat , 

 ser. 3, xi. 17 I). 



3 Sometimes trisect; very rai civ pinnatisect. 

 * L. p., Suppl, 232.— DC, Prodr., n. 1.— 



Hot. Beg., t. 307. — Huteria pinnata .Miiuk. — 

 Desmvphylhtm pinuatum Webb, Phyt. Canar., 

 i. 1 1. 



8 Reichb., Ic. Fl. Germ., v. t. 155-157; 

 Fl. Crit., vii. 786-7LO.— Jacq., Ic. Ear., t. 76. 

 — Dttham., Arbr., ii. t. 61. — Sibtu.,2'7. G. 

 t. 368-370.— Ten., Fl. Neap., t. 36.— Gken. & 

 Godh., Fl. de Fr., i. 328. — Labill., Syr., Dec. 

 i. t. 14.— Jaub. & Siv.cn, III. PL Or., iii. t. 

 261-270 {Sapluphyllnin).— Eotss., Fl. Or., i. 

 931.— C. Gay, Fl. C/iil., i. 489.— Tchihatch., 

 As. Mi». Bot.. vii. 154,— Bot. Mag., t. 2018, 

 2254 (Haplophyllum), 2311.— Walb., B>p., i. 

 517, 518; ii. 821; v. 394 (Haplophyllum) ; 

 Ann., i. 156 (Haplophyllum) ; ii. 251; iii. 840 

 (Haplcphyllum) j vii. 507. 



