THYMEL^ACEm. 



US 



Fig. 86. Floriferous branch. 



form of an elongate tube and presents a transverse articulation 



constricted above the ovary. The latter is surrounded by a thin 



annular disk, and becomes a dry fruit surrounded by the inferior 



portion of the perianth. Diarthron comprises slender herbs from central 



Asia ; the leaves are alternate, linear, and the flowers form elongated 



and slender spikes, destitute of bracts. Passenna (fig. 86) has also 



tetramerous flowers, with hypo- 



crateriform calyx ; the ovary is Fassarina Ursuta. 



without a disk, and the two 



staminal verticils are sufliciently 



near to appear a single verticil. 



The fruit is dry or more rarely 



fleshy, as in P. empetroides, of 



which has been made a genus 



Chymococca^ but which, like its 



congeners, is a Cape plant, eri- 



coid, tomentose, with linear opposite leaves, and flowers solitary 



or collected in short spikes or terminal capitules. 



The androecium is rarely isostemonous in this series, and there 

 are only four genera therefore constituting the subseries Struthiolece. 

 Struthiola and Kelleria have in fact only four stamens, alternate with 

 the divisions of the perianth; but the throat of the latter bears 

 four simple or unsheathed scales, superposed to the divisions 

 [Eustruthiolece). In Brapetes^ 



on the contrary, the scales nmUa UgmtHna. 



disappear (Drapetece), all the 

 other characters remaining 

 those of Kelleria, Struthiola 

 consists of Cape shrubs or 

 undershrubs, ericoid and with 

 leaves almost always alternate. 

 Kelleria and Drapetes are 

 humble subshrubby and cses- 

 pitose, musciform plants, 

 with sessile and imbricate 

 leaves. The former are 

 Oceanic; the latter inhabit 

 the mainland and principal Pig. 87. Flower (^). 

 islands of the Magellanic 



VOL. VI. 



Fig. 88. Long. sect, of 

 flower. 



