314 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Canephora axillaris. 



male flowers are grouped in small glomerules borne on a common 

 axis and forming a spike of cymes, that is a mixed inflorescence. 

 The flowers are in other respects constructed like those of a Genipa 

 or Amaioua. 



In the two genera Pouchetia and Petunga, the flowers are constructed 

 like those of Randia, in the former 5-merous, in the latter 4, 5-merous. 

 The corolla is small funnel-shaped contorted ; the anthers, nearly 



sessile, are inserted at the throat, and the 

 ovary, with two multiovulate cells, becomes 

 a few-seeded berry. In Pouchetia, from 

 western tropical Africa, the ovarian cells are 

 in part incomplete, the disk is annular, the 

 style branches slender, traversed by a furrow, 

 the seeds angular and the flowers in simple 

 or compound axillary clusters. In Petiinga, 

 growing in India and the Indian Archipelago, 

 the ovarian cells are complete, the epigynous 

 disk entire or bilobed, the style branches 

 covered with hairs, the seeds imbricate 

 squamiform and the flowers in simple or 

 rarely somewhat compound spikes. In 

 Fernelia, shrubs of the Mascarene isles, the 

 organization of the flowers is very similar ; 

 but they are unisexual, ordinarily tetra- 

 merous, surrounded by a small 4-dentate 

 involucre formed of connate bracts. The 

 ovary has two cells, generally incomplete, 

 and is surmounted by two thick stylary 

 branches. The flowers are small, axillary, 

 solitary or in cymes and very few, almost sessile. In Morindopsis, 

 inhabiting south-eastern tropical Asia, the flowers are dioecious, 

 axillary and long-pedunculate. They have a calyx with four imbricate- 

 decurved teeth, a corolla with four contorted lobes, four enclosed 

 stamens and an ovary of two cells each containing several flattened 

 descending and imbricate ovules. The fruit is elongate, indehiscent, 

 but with a thin and very fragile pericarp. The female flowers are 

 often solitary at the end of the peduncle ; but below them are two 

 pairs of bracts and these may become fertile ; this may occur 

 especially in the male inflorescence and gives to the latter the 



Fig. 303. Inflorescence [\). 



