472 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



base. In the internal angle of each cell are inserted one or two 

 descending ovules, suspended by a rather long fnnicle, and anatro- 

 pous, with the micropyle primarily ^ turned upwards and inwards.^ 

 The fruit, dry, coriaceous or woody at maturity,^ is of four cells, one 

 or more of which contain a descending seed. The latter encloses 

 under its coats a fleshy albumen which envelopes an embryo with 

 superior radicle and straight, undulated or plaited cotyledons. 



There are Gauras with trimerous flowers and trigonal receptacular 

 tube. Some, as G. mollis and mutahilisj have the stigmatic lobes 

 straight and elongate ; a genus, Gauridiumj^ has been made of them. 

 Others, as G. ejpilohioides^ etc., types of the genus Schizocarya,^ have 

 a fruit which opens superiorly by three or four clefts. In G, linifo- 

 lia, generically distinguished under the name of Stenosiphon,^ the 

 interior basal appendix of the staminal filaments is scarcely visible 

 or even nil, and the partitions of the ovarian cells are often incom- 

 plete. The genus contains about twenty species,^ herbaceous, annual 

 or evergreen, natives of the warmest parts of North America, prin- 

 cipally the west. The leaves are alternate, generally narrow, entire, 

 and the flowers,^ disposed in clusters or spikes, simple or ramified, 

 are solitary or grouped in small glomerules in the axil of alternate 

 bracts borne by the slender axes of the inflorescence. 



G, heterandra,^ a Californian annual, has become the type of a 

 genus Heterogaura,^^ distinguished from Gaura chiefly by tetramerous 

 flowers with a short wide receptacular tube, and by stamens often 

 sterile, inserted in variable number in front of each petal. The 

 ovary is of four uni ovulate cells, and the stigmatiferous extremity 

 of the style is destitute of the peripherical collar of Gaura. 



With the gynsecium of Gaura, Gongylocarpus ruhricaulis,^^ a 

 herbaceous plant of Mexico, has flowers which occupy the axil of 



1 The ovules later direct their micropyle Froc. Amer. Acad. vi. 350 (1864). — Walp. Rep. 

 side wise or even outwards. v. 670. 



2 There is a double coat. 7 Torr. et Gr. Fl. N.-Amer. i. (1840) 516.— 



3 It bears four salient columns, alternating H. B. K. Nov. Gen. et Sp. vi. t. 529. — Eothr. 

 with the cells, and corresponding to the bands loc. cit. 349. — Walp. Mep. ii. 96 ; v. 670 ; Ann. 

 of the fruit of Gayophytum, Onagra, etc. They ii. 535 ; iv. 682. 



are filled with 1-3 longitudinal woody bundles. ^ White or pink. 



Before complete maturity the fruit may be » Torr. et Gk. Pacif. E. R. Rep. iv. 89. 



slightly drupaceous. lo Rothr. Froc. Jmer. Acad. vi. 354 (1864).— 



* Spach, Nouv. Ann. Mus. iv. 325, 374; Suit. B. H. Gen. 793, n. 18. 



d Buffon, iv. 379. n Cham, et Schlchtl, Linnaa, v. 557.— B. H. 



5 Spach, Nouv. Ann. Mus. iv. 325, 381. Gen. 793, n. 19.— H. Bn. Adansonia, xii. 22.— 



^ Spach, Nouv. Ann. Mm. iv. 326. — Rothr. Walp. Rep. ii. 97; v. 670, 



