436 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



stipules rather large ; flowers united, generally at the summit of the 



branches, in corymbiform cymes whose floral pedicels are articulate 



and accompanied by bractlets above and below. Brachypterys^ shrubs 



from the shores of the Antilles and tropical conti- 



Feixota giabm. neutal America, have also the flower of Banisteria., 



with eight calycine glands and ten fertile stamens. 



The extremities of the styles are swollen out in a 



flattened blade or in the form of a reversed foot, and 



covered internally with stigmatic papillae. The 



dorsal wing surmounting the cocci of the fruit is 



rather thick and short. The inflorescence resembles 



that of Brachyptcrys. The same may be said of 



Stiymaphyllon, climbing shrubs from tropical 



America, with leaves usually opposite. But, of the 



Fig. 440. Flower, with . , i . ■ t t •^^ ir L•^ 



perianth removed (±). ten stamcus, Only SIX are provided with a fertile 

 anther. Four of those which are alteruipetalous 

 have an anther, abortive, deformed, or even totally absent. The 

 fruit is a samara with dorsal wing longer than in Brachyptcrys. 



Hcteropterys, shrubs, sometimes climbing, of tropical America and 

 AJrica, have the closest affinities with Stigmaphyllon and Brachyptcrys; 

 they possess the carpels with developed dorsal wing of the former, 

 and the styline branches with stigmatiferous apex in shape of a foot 

 of the latter ; they have moreover the flower of both with a calyx 

 having eight glands or thereabouts. But the inflorescence is in 

 simple or ramified clusters, with articulate pedicels accompanied by 

 two lateral bractlets ; a character of small value in itself, but which 

 may serve provisionally to separate them from the two preceding 

 genera. Hcnlco/jhyton^ glabrous and tortuous shrubs from Cuba, is 

 also closely allied. They are said to be distinguished by peltate or 

 stipitate calycine glands, by styline branches with capitate stigma- 

 tiferous apex, and by carjiels without wings, covered with long soft 

 silk on the dorsal region. The flowers are described as arranged in 

 axillary and slender clusters. Those of Lophopterys, a tree from 

 Guiana, are terminal and ramified. The flowers are moreover 

 analogous to those of the preceding genera, but for the calyx bearing 

 only four large glands with radiating lamels and the carpels 

 being separated from one another for the greater part of their length. 

 They are, at maturity, ■woody, indehiscent, edged by a hard 



