294 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Fig. 270. Long. sect, 

 of flower (A). 



Fig. 271. Long, 

 sect, of fruit. 



and Oassipourece have been given. The flowers are regular, with a 

 receptacle in the form of a shallow cup, bearing on its margin five 

 valvate and slightly reduplicate sepals, and five alternate petals, 

 spoon-shaped at the base, with a limb divided into unequal lobes. ^ 

 The perigynous stamens are inserted on the receptacle within the 



petals ; they are formed 



Macarisia lanceolata. each of a frCC filament 



and an introrse bilo- 

 cular anther, dehiscing 

 by two longitudinal 

 clefts, inflexed in the 

 bud. Five are super- 

 posed to the petals, and 

 five, somewhat shorter, 

 alternate ; they are 

 separated from each 

 other by an equal 

 number of tongues be- 

 longing to the disk. 

 The gyneecium, somewhat restricted at the base, is inserted at the 

 bottom of the receptacular cup, but entirely free. It is composed of 

 an ovary with five cells, ^ superposed to the petals, surmounted by a 

 style slightly capitate and stigmatiferous at the summit. In the 

 internal angle of each cell is found a placenta supporting two 

 collateral, descending, incompletely anatropous ovules, with micro- 

 pyle exterior and superior. The fruit is a loculicidal capsule finally 

 dividing above into ten pannels and setting free ten (or less) com- 

 pressed seeds, surmounted by a long vertical membranous wing, and 

 enclosing, in the centre of a fleshy albumen, an elongate embryo, 

 with oblong cotyledons and superior radicle. Macarisia consists of 

 shrubs from Madagascar. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, accom- 

 panied by interpetiolate stipules, with entire or dentelate, penni- 

 nerved limb. The flowers, in the axil of the leaves, are in compound 

 cymes, with articulate pedicels accompanied by two lateral bracteoles. 

 Two species ^ are known. 



Cassipourea (fig. 272-274) comprises plants from tropical America, 

 the flower of which is nearly the same in construction as that of 



^ Imbricate "between them. 



" Somewhat incomplete above the ovules. 



5 H. Bn. loc. cit. 20. — WALr. Ann. vii. 

 952. 



