356 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



leaves, like those of most of the true Ruhiacece, are accompanied with 

 large foHaceous stipules. The flowers are grouped in cymes occu- 

 pying the axil of leaves or bracts and may resemble capitules. 



In Symphoricarpos, the flowers are also regular (fig. 365-369), 4, 

 5.merous, having an imbricate bell- or funnel-shaped corolla, four or 

 five stamens, generally short, inserted at the throat of the corolla, 

 and an ovary with four cells surmounted by a small epigynous disk. 



Symphoricarpos racemosus. 



Of the four ovarian cells, two, the anterior and posterior, are pluri- 

 ovulate and become sterile, whilst the two lateral contain each only 

 one descending ovule with dorsal raphe. In the drupaceous and 

 2-celled fruit (fig. 370) these uniovulate cells alone become fertile 

 and enclose a descending albuminous seed. Symphoricarpos consists 

 of North American shrubs with opposite leaves, without stipules, 

 having flowers in spikes or axillary clusters. 



Alseuosmia, a glabrous shrub of New Zealand, is exceptional in 

 this group in that the lobes of the corolla, four or five in number, 

 are valvate or induplicate, in the latter case with dentelate margins. 

 The bilocular ovary is surmounted by a disk and a style the stigma- 

 tiferous extremity of which is more or less enlarged. Each of the 

 cells contains a rather large number of ovules inserted on the 

 partition, and becomes a berry the seeds of which are angular and 

 have an abundant fleshy albumen and a small embryo. The leaves 

 are alternate, entire, dentate or crenelate, and the flowers are solitary 

 or in cymes, in the axil of the leaves, on the side or even at the 

 extremity of the branches. 



