381. NATURAL HISTORY OF rLANTS. 



pendent among themselves, and each tapers above into a slender style, 

 uniting with the others in forming a single column tapering and stig- 

 raatiferous at the apex. In the internal angle of each ovary is a 

 parietal placenta generally supporting three anatropous ovules. Two 

 of them are superior, more or less collateral, and more or less oblique, 

 oftener ascending than descending. 1 If they were horizontal, as 

 they are occasionally, the micropyle would be above the raphe, which 

 would become inferior and horizontal. The inferior ovule is always 

 descending ; its raphe is dorsal ; its micropyle directed inwards and 

 upwards. The fruit is dry, stipitate formed of five rostrate shells, 

 di- or tri-spermous, opening elastically into two valves, the horny 

 endocarp separating from the exterior layers. The subglobular 

 seeds contain under their coats 2 a fleshy albumen surrounding an 

 embryo with short radicle and thick cotyledons. This genus only 

 contains one species, herbaceous, perennial, or suffrutescent at the 

 base, all the parts loaded with prominent glands secreting a very 

 odoriferous essence. The leaves are alternate imparipinnate, with 

 serrulate punctuate folioles. The flowers are disposed in terminal 

 racemes of uniparous cymes. The single species of this genus 3 

 grows in southern Europe, and in all temperate Asia. 



We remark, then, in this first small series of Butacea that there 

 are regular and irregular types, some with carpels independent of each 

 other in the ovary, while the styles are united among themselves, 

 and others in which the union extends to the ovaries themselves, 

 but to a very variable extent, without other features of organization 

 sufficiently clear to serve in distinguishing other genera. These 

 differences are also found in other series of the family; they serve to 

 distinguish one from the other, or to establish in certain of them 

 subseries comparable to those which may be named here : Eurutece 

 {Jli/la, B(Bnninghausenia i Thamnosma, Tetradiclis), and Dictamnece 

 iDictamnus). K - 



1 With two coats. 3 D. Fraxinella Pehs., Fnchirid., i. 461. — 



- The exterior is smooth ami black; the Link., Enum., i. 398. — Scukuue., llandb., t. 



internal angle is occupied to about half its 114. — Reichb., Ic. Fl. Germ., v. 159. — Boiss., 



extent by a cicatrice, the separated edges Fl. Or., i. 920. — D. alius L., Spec, 548. — 



exposing to view the middle coat, brown ami DC, Fl. Fr., iv. 734. — Gren. & Godk., Fl. de 



liltlc enduring. The interior is membranous FY., i. 329. — Walp., Hep., i. 517; Ann. vii. 



and whitish. 509. 



