386 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



each surmounted by a two-celled introrse anther dehiscing by two 

 longitudinal clefts. An elevated conical disk hides all the lower 

 part of the gynseceum j that is to say, the five free oppositipetalous 

 ovaries, surmounted by their styles, which starting from the inner 

 angle unite anion £ themselves in forming: a tubular column, with a 

 five-lobed capitate stigmatiferous apex. In the internal angle of 

 each ovary is seen a placenta supporting two descending anatropous 

 ovules with superior exterior micropjle. 1 The fruit, accompanied 

 by the persistent calyx, consists of five independent bivalved shells, 

 the bivalve exocarp thin, although at first fleshy, elastically sepa- 

 rating from the pergamenous endocarp at maturity. Each contains 

 two arched seeds with umbilicus rugose, muricate, or tubercular on 

 the surface, containing under their coats 2 a scanty albumen and a 

 large embryo, with short superior fornicate radicle. The cotyledons, 

 one dorsal the other central, form numerous folds, and are closely 

 enveloped by each other. 



E. brasiliense presents here and there in cultivation abnormal 

 flowers, whose androceum has unequal pieces, one of them sometimes 

 sterile. This sterility in a certain number of stamens is the rule in 

 most of the other species of this genus. The corolla then becomes 

 more or less fornicate ; the lobes of the limb are slightly unequal 

 and imbricate. Only two of the five alternipetalous stamens are 

 provided with anthers ; and there are belonging to the androceum 

 five other sterile tongues, two of which, smaller than the others, are 

 superposed to the two divisions of the corolla, and consequently 

 belong to another verticil. These facts are especially observed in E. 

 Iiypophyllanthus, 3 a species, moreover, remarkable for the position 

 of the inflorescence. 



Ert/throchifon consists of glabrous shrubs, with simple or slightly 

 ramified stems, five or six species 4 of which are known, natives of 

 Brazil, Guiana, Columbia, Ecuador. The alternate leaves are 



1 With two coats. above which the external cellular membrane is 



2 The exterior coat is thin and soft, covered much thinner than elsewhere, and covered less 

 with numerous small ribs like short hairs. The abundantly with hairs. This arrangement 

 second layer is a blackish testa, dry and brittle, renders more visible this opercule, which recalls 

 lined inwardly by a thin brownish membrane. to some extent that of the seed of Cochlos- 

 Under the micropyle on the internal edge of the permton. (See p. 298, note 2). 



seed a large depression of the testa is seen cor- 3 Pl. & LlNB., in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 3, xix. 



responding with the hilum. A soft white pro- 75. — Bot. Mag., t. 5824. 



jection of the placenta is there inserted. Hut 4 Hook., in Bot. Mag., t. 472. — Walp., 



lower towards the region of the chalaza therein Rep., v. 387 ; Am., iv. 410; vii. 500. 



a sort of operculate circular hard blackish plug. 



