CASTANEACEJE. 



245 



Mt/rica Gale. 



Fiff. 218. 



5-androus male 

 flower. 



axil of each scale of the male catkin, are found stamens, varying 

 from two to five in number (fig. 218) ; but most frequently there are 

 four, one anterior, one posterior, and two lateral. The filaments 

 are free except quite at the base, where they are monadelphojis, and 

 the anthers are bilocular, introrse, and dehiscent by two longitudinal 

 clefts.^ In the female catkin (fig. 219), the axil of each scale is 

 occupied by a sessile flower, accompanied by 

 two lateral bracts.^ Otherwise the gynsecium 

 is naked, and composed of a unilocular ovary, 

 surmounted by a style almost immediately 

 divided into two long subulate branches, pri- 

 \&^l3^K^!^f ^ marily anterior and posterior,^ and covered 



"^ ^^ with red stigmatic papillse. In the interior 



of the ovarian cell is inserted at the base an 

 ovule, which appears erect, and is ortho- 

 tropous, that is to say its micropyle is superior.* When this ovary 

 becomes a drupaceous fruit, with mesocarp slightly fleshy, and 

 epicarp covered with glandular and resinous projections, the two 

 lateral bracteolcs, in this species persistent, form, as it were, two 

 thick marginal wings (fig. 222, 223). The seed, erect, contains 

 under its coat, a fleshy embryo, destitute of albumen, with superior 

 radicle and thick plano-convex cotyledons. M. Gale, of which a 

 distinct genus has been made,-^ is a small odorous shrub, living 

 socially in the marshes of temperate Europe and North America. 

 Its leaves are alternate, simple, serrulate, penninerved, without 

 stipules. The catkins occupy the axils of the leaves of the preceding 

 year (fig. 217), and the flowers bloom in the spring before the leaves 

 of the year have attained their full development. 



In M. asplenifoUa (flg. 224, 225), of which the genus Gomptonia^ 

 has been made, the leaves are pinnatifid, accompanied by stipules, 

 (wanting in other species of the genus), and in the axil of the lateral 



Lamk. Diet. ii. 592 ; Suppl. ii. 696 ; III. t. 809. 

 —Sckkvub., Ilandb. t. 322.— Tukp. Diet.Se. Nat. 

 Atl. t. 298.-NEES, Oen. fasc. 3, tab.— Spach, 

 Suit, a Buffon, xi. 260. — Exdl. Gen. n. 1839 

 (part.).— C. DC. Prodr. xvi. sect. ii. 147 (incl. : 

 Comptonia Banks, Faija Webb, (ra^e J. Bauh. 

 Kageia G^:rtn.). 



1 The pollen is " flattened, ellipsoid, some- 

 what triangular; three small pores at the angles, 



with large haloes." (H. Mohl, Ann. Sc. Nat^ 

 ser. 2, iii. 312.). 



2 They may be transformed to stamens o^^ 

 bear a stamen in their axil. 



3 Later they become lateral* 



* There is only one ovular envelope, 

 s GaleS.BKVu.Hist.n. 223.— Spach, ^<?c.ciV.2o8. 

 6 Banks, Ga;rtn. Fruct. ii. 58, t. 90.— Spach, 

 loc. cit. 264. 



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