BUBIACE2E. 



329 



Folypremum procumbens. 



Fig. 319. Flower (?). 



Fig. 320. Long, sect 

 of flower. 



TJragorfii, Mitrcola is to Opliiorrliiza, growing in the warm regions of 

 Asia and Oceania : the unikiteral inflorescences are there the same as 

 in Mltreola and the form of the capsules is nearly always the same. 

 But the receptacle being 

 more concave, the ovary 

 and fruit are in great 

 part inferior, and at a 

 certain height on the 

 sides of the latter (fig. 

 321) are seen the re- 

 mains of the calyx and a 

 trace of the margin of 

 the receptacular cup on 

 which the perianth was 

 inserted. Some Ophior- 

 rhizas, as Polyura and 

 Falcenhamia, differ some- 

 what from the rest in the turbinate or obconical form of the 

 receptacle or in some details of the inflorescence which always 

 consists of uniparous cymes. 



Spiradidis is also a herb of tropical Asia, with flowers in racemiform 

 often unilateral cymes. 



The concave receptacle OpMorrhizajaponica. 



is generally traversed 

 by four ridges, and the 

 lobes of the corolla, 

 four or five in number, 

 arevalvate. The ovary 

 has two cells, some- 

 times incomplete, sur- 

 mounted by a disk 



with two or four lobes, and the placentas, ascending and pluriovulate, 

 are those of Opliiorrliiza, Oldenlandia, &c. The fruit is a loculicidal 

 capsule the valves of which often separate in two halves. Lcrchca, 

 shrubby or subshrubby plants of tropical Oceania, have the flowers 

 of Oldciilandia, a fruit of two indehiscent cocci, with a corolla often 

 glabrous within and stylary branches thicker than in those named 

 Xanthophjtum. In the latter the glomerules or floral cymes are 

 inserted in the axil of the leaves, whilst in the true Lercliea, in which 



Fig. 321. Fruif(f). 



