BUT 'ACE m. 



399 



leaves, and whose androceum is sometimes isostemonous, and some- 

 times diplostemonous ; Bouchardatia, having opposite trifoliolate 



Medicosma Cunninghami. 



Fig. 439. 

 Flower (f ). 



Fig. 440. 

 Longitudinal section of flower. 



Medicosma Cunninghami. 



leaves and hermaphrodite tetramerous diplostemonous flowers, 

 with an imbricated corolla and ovaries containing an inde- 

 finite number of ovules arranged in 

 two vertical ranks ; Bosistoa, with 

 pinnate leaves, pentamerous flowers, 

 valvate petals, a disk prominent in 

 the interval of the stamens, and four or 

 five ovules in each carpel ; Pagetia, 

 with opposite simple or trifoliolate 

 leaves, pentamerous and diplostemo- 

 nous flowers, the corolla subvalvate, and 

 the ovaries 4-6-ovulate ; finally, Gei- 

 jera, with hermaphrodite, isostemonous 

 flowers in four or five parts, surbased 

 receptacle, valvate corolla, and a glan- 

 dular circular even disk, with more or 

 less gynobasic style. The leaves are 

 simple and alternate, and the flowers 

 disposed in ramified cymes at the summit of the branches, or on the 

 wood of the secondary branches. 1 



Fig. 441. 



Flower without 



corolla (^). 



Fig. 442. 

 Gynajceum (A). 



1 It is only with extreme hesitation that we 

 have provisionally placed in this group a plant 

 whose organization is but very imperfectly 

 known to us, and of which we have only been 

 able to study the female flowers. It is Didg- 

 meles (Dup.-Te., Gen. Nov. Madag., n. 89; 

 Hist. Veg. lies Afr. Auslr., 9, t. 1;— Ekdl., 

 Gen., n. 6845), whose place has hitherto been 



uncertain, and which is distinguished from all 

 the other types of this group inasmuch as it is 

 a tree with alternate simple petiolate leaves 

 entire, and not punctuate at the adult age. The 

 flowers are dioecious and disposed, it is said, the 

 males in compound racemes, the females in spikes, 

 with a perianth represented by two small leaves. 

 In the male flower two stamens alternating 



