478 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



the perianth, that is, they are epigynous ; they are eight in numher, 

 in two verticils and superposed, four to the sepals, and four, often 

 shorter, to the petals. The filaments are slender, and the anthers 

 elongate, basifixed or nearly so, dehiscing by two nearly lateral 

 clefts. The gyneecium, rudimentary in the male flowers, is composed 

 of an inferior ovary, with four oppositipetalous cells, rarely two cells, 

 surmounted by the same number of short stylary branches, at summit 



Haloragis alata. 



Fis- 458. Flower. 



Fig. 459. Long, 

 sect, of flowoir. 



Fig. 457. Floriferous branch. Fig. 460. Fruit. Fig. 461. Long. sect, of fruit. 



stigmatiferous papillose or plumose. In the internal angle of each 

 ovarian cell is a descending anatropous ovule, with micropyle interior 

 and superior. It not unfrequently happens that the interl ocular 

 partitions disappear more or less completely, and the ovary, conse- 

 quently, appears reduced to a single quadriovulate cell. The fruit, 

 pyramidal, angular or winged, is a drupe, the thin mesocarp of which 

 finally becomes quite dry. The putamen contains, in each cell, a 

 descending seed, the coats of which enclose a fleshy albumen and an 

 axile embryo, with superior radicle and very small cotyledons. 

 Haloragis consists of herbaceous or subshrubby plants, of which 

 some, forty species^ are known, natives of Asia, Oceania, and the 



1 Labill. N.-BoU. t. 53 {Gonjocarpus), 128, Fl. 64.— Benth. Fl. Austral, ii. 473.— F. Muell. 



129. — Jacq. Ic. Ear. i. t. 69. — Ad. Br. Buperr. Fragm. Phyt. Austral, viii. 162. — Hook. Icon. t. 



Voy. Bot. t. 68-70.— A. Eich. Fl. N.-Zel. 324. 290,311 {Gomocarpus).—FKA.-i;cn.etSK\.Enum. 



— ilooK. F. Fl. Tatman. i. t. 22 ; Man. N.-Zeal. PI. Jap. 164.— W alp. Rep. ii. 99 ; v. 672 ; Ann. 



