358 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Loniccra alpigena. 



Fig. 379. Connate 

 geminate flowers. 



Linncea horealis. 



Linncea (Abelia) unijlora. 



to the section of the genus presenting these peculiarities ; it comprises 

 chmbing shrubs with opposite, often connate leaves. In another 

 section of the genus to which the name Xylosteon (fig. 377-379) has 

 been given, the stems are sometimes climbing, 

 sometimes erect ; the leaves are not connate, and 

 the flowers, grouped in pairs, have their ovaries 

 free (fig. 378) or united to a variable extent (or 

 even entirely) in one receptacular pouch (fig. 377, 

 379). The same is the case with the fruit which 

 is not crowned with the calyx and in which the 

 two or three pluriovulate cells remain distinct. 



TriosteuMf Asiatic and American perennial 



herbs, has nearly the irregular flowers of the 



Honeysuckles, with an ovary of 2-5 cells; but 



in each of these there is only one descending ovule with dorsal 



raphe and micropyle directed inwards and upwards. The leaves are 



opposite, and in their axils are the flowers, which are solitary or in 



contracted cymes. 



The name Linncea ho- 

 realis (fig. 380) has been 

 given to a very low 

 creeping woody plant of 

 the northern regions of 

 Europe, Asia and Ame- 

 rica, the flower of which 

 is nearly that of Lonicera, 

 with a corolla of five 

 imbricate lobes, regular 

 or somewhat irregular, 

 and four stamens, but 

 the three-celled ovary 

 resembles that of Sym- 

 phoricarpos in that the 

 cells do not all contain 

 the same number of 

 ovules : two are pluri- 

 ovulate, and in the third is a single descending ovule with dorsal 

 raphe. The fruit, indehiscent, coriaceous, trilocular, contains only 

 a^ single seed. In Ahelia (fig. 381), with us only a section of the 



Fig. 380. Floriferous 

 branch. 



Fig. 381. Long. sect, of 

 flower. 



