LYTIIRARIACEJE, 



433 



Fig. 396. Flower (f). 



Fig. 397. Long. sect, 

 of flower. 



nearly unilocular, with numerous scobiform seeds, inserted on a false 

 central placenta. The surface of the seeds is hispid, and the flowers, 

 rather large, are axillary, solitary, or grouped in few-flowered cymes. 



Adenaria (fig. 396, 397) comprises also tropical American plants ; 

 like Dodecas, they have an obconical or campanulate receptacle, four 

 or five sepals, without accessory tongues, and a diplostemonous 

 androecium inserted higher or lower on the internal wall of the re- 

 ceptacle. The ovary, with short 



foot, has two multiovulate cells, ^^^^''^'^ ^^'"^"'"'"• 



and the capsular fruit is obovoid, 

 with an indefinite number of 

 glabrous seeds. The two or 

 three adenarias known are trees 

 with opposite leaves and with 

 axillary corymbiform and many- 

 flowered cymes. Nearly all the 

 parts are covered with dark 

 punctiform glands. Yery little 

 diff'erent from Adenaria is Gris- 

 lea sectmda, a shrub of Columbia 



and Venezuela, but it has dentiform tongues alternating with its 

 four or five sepals, and all the stamens are inserted quite at the base 

 of the gyna3cium. Its capsular fruit is globular, with seeds equally 

 glabrous. In Woodfordia florihunda, a shrub of India, China, 

 Madagascar, and tropical eastern Africa, which has been referred to 

 the genus Grislea, there are also black glandular points on the 

 greater part of the organs ; but the flowers are not regular. The 

 receptacular tube has an oblique superior opening, and the flower as 

 a whole is bent. There are from five to seven dentiform valvate 

 sepals, with as many small accessory tongues and very small petals. 

 The stamens are declinate, twice as many as the sepals, in two 

 verticils, and the largest oppositipetalous. The fruit is a loculicidal 

 bivalve capsule, with numerous seeds, covered with hairs or papillae. 

 This genus also closely connects Lythrum with the following type. 



Cuphea (fig. 398-404), which cannot but be considered a very 

 near ally of the Salicarias, forms however a small group (Gu;pheece) 

 characterized by the constant irregularity of the fiower. It has a 

 receptacular tube traversed by longitudinal ribs, and dilated below 

 and posteriorly to a more or less prominent spur. The mouth of 



VOL. VI. 28 



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