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NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Pogonavthen 

 reficxa. 



\ 



eight to twelve stamens equal or nearly so, the anthers of which 

 have at the base three glandular prominences more or less developed; 

 two anterior and one posterior. The ovary is in part adherent to the 

 receptacle and becomes a fleshy or pulpy fruit, with rectilinear or 

 slightly reniform seeds. They are erect or climbing shrubs of Asia, 

 Oceania, tropical Africa, and Madagascar. The flowers, often very 

 beautiful, sometimes accompanied by 

 Mediniiia coloured bracts, are disposed in ter- 

 minal or lateral cymes. To these 

 we annex, as sections, Carionia, 

 which has larger flowers in few- 

 ^\ flowered cymes, with the calyx fur- 



nished with fine narrow tongues, and 

 Pachycentria, which has numerous 

 small flowers, with the receptacle 

 more constricted at the throat. Pogo- 

 nanthera (fig. 22), from the Indian 

 Archipelago, with numerous small 

 flowers, closely approaches Mcdinilla, 

 differing only in the connective being 

 without prolongations, and having 

 on its back a bunch of long slender 

 hairs. Dissochceta, which has given 

 Fig. 21. stamen, name to a tribe (Dissochcetece), is Fig. 22. stamen. 

 McdiniUaf with stamens ordinarily 

 more unequal. They are usually eight or more rarely four in 

 number. The top of the filament is prolonged in a lanceolate 

 lamina, more or less wide, and the connective often bears two 

 anterior basilar prominences. They are entirely absent in certain 

 species, particularly in I), Diepenliorstii, a Javan plant, which has 

 only four stamens with anthers much inflexed, papillaceous on the 

 surface, and with a large foliaceous expansion of the top of the 

 filament (fig. 28). It has been made a genus, Omphalopus, In 

 D. divaricata, glauca, ajanocarpa^ and other analogous species, the 

 anthers, eight or four, have the form of those of Omphalopus^ but are 

 smoother on the surface, and the ovary, with four vertical angles 

 along which it adheres to the receptacle, is crowned with four 'Crests 

 more or less prominent. It has been proposed to make a genus 

 also of it under the name of Aripkctnim, Creochiton is diplostemonous 



