13fi NATURAL HlSTOHY OF PLANTS. 



fifteen.' The gynpeceum presents a smaller number of variations. The 

 style-branches, generally cylindrical, may become flattened as in 

 Conosapium and Tceniosapium \ " characters which have been judged 

 sufficient to distinguish genera, but to Avhich we do not accord the 

 same value. It is the same as to the height to which the style, 

 single at fii*st, afterwards separates into two or three stigmatiferous 

 branches, always eutii'e or more or less recurved and revolute. In 

 AdenopeUis (fig. 212) the division takes place almost at the summit 

 of the ovary. The seeds, with or without an arillate dilatation 

 of the micropyle or of the whole extent of theii* surface, being in 

 general completely auatropous, so that, although the chalaza is quite 

 inferior, this organ may in Dacfylostemon rise more or less upon the 

 inner edge, variations which seem to us quite insufficient to consti- 

 tute distinct genera. Thus composed, this genus contains about a 

 hundred and twenty-five species.^ These are trees, shrubs, or even 

 sutfrutescent or herbaceous plants; they are met with in all warm 

 regions, esjiecially in America. They have alternate, rarely opposite 

 stipulate or exstipiilate leaves. The simple penninerved limb often 

 bears two lateral glands at the base ; it is the same with the bracts, 

 bractlets, and sometimes even the sepals. These glands are, more- 

 over, very variable in form, more or less hollowed in cups, sacs, or 

 tubes, sessile or stipitato and claviform. The flowers are disposed 

 in racemes or spikes generally terminal, loaded with bracts whose 

 axil contains a flower or a cyme, often three-floAvered. In the 

 monoecious species the female flowers occupy the axils of one or 

 several inferior bracts of the inflorescence, and the male flowers, 

 much more numerous, occupy the summit, 



Close beside Exccecaria, we place : Senefeldera, consisting of trees 

 from Brazil, generally with from six to eight stamens, bi-seriate, 

 borne upon a conical receptacle, an obovoid trilobed imbricated male 

 calyx, and a capsular fruit with arillate seeds ; Padiystroma., also a 

 Brazilian tree, is also nearly allied to Exececaria^ which has a calyx 



I Besides this, in certain species, a true many- iiopeltis, Sebastiaiiiu), 1190 [Moprouiien), 1192 



flowered glomernle has sometimes been de- {Actiiiostcmou) , 1195 {Diict)//ostciiioii), 1201 Tee- 



scrihed as a single flower. t/iositpiiim, Excoeenria). — Bentii. ^7. Austrnl. 



2M. Ako. Prudr. 1200.— H. Bn. in Adaii- vi. 151 [Sibastiuiiia), 152 \ Fl. Hoiigkoyig, 302 



soma, ii. 31, {(ifillinffia). [UtiUiiigiu). — H. Bn. in Adniisniiiri, 77, 285, 



^M. Aug. P,odr. 1154 {Coiiomjniim), 1155 350; ii. 27, 227; iii. 1G2; v. 320; vi. 323 



(Stilliii(/ia), IWi {G//miiosniliiii/i<i), 1161 (-7i/c- {Stil/iiiffia). 



