102 HAGENIA ABYSSINICA 



zigzag, more or less densely hairy or pilose and glandular, with a 

 membranous, ovate, veiny, ciliated, often reflexed bract at the base 

 of every branch, the lower ones sometimes leafy. Flowers very 

 numerous, small, shortly stalked, unisexual, each with two rounded 

 membranous veined bracts at its base, greenish-yellow in the male, 

 tinged with red in the female, inflorescence. Male flowers : calyx 

 with a short tube and 10 segments in two whorls ; outer whorl of 5 

 small, linear-oblong, hairy segments, inner of 5 broadly oval, veiny, 

 ciliate, membranous segments twice as long as the outer, usually 

 reflexed, greenish-yellow ; petals 5 inconspicuous, alternating with 

 the inner calyx- segments and much shorter than them, linear- 

 lanceolate, acute ; stamens about 15 30, inserted with the petals, 

 which they equal in length, in the contracted throat of the calyx, 

 anthers short ; carpels 2 undeveloped or abortive. Female flowers : 

 calyx-tube top-shaped, strongly hairy externally, prolonged above 

 into a constricted neck (disk) closely surrounding the styles, seg- 

 ments 10, in two alternating whorls, the outer 5 (epicalyx) broader 

 and longer than the inner even when in flower, persistent and becom- 

 ing much elongated in fruit, the inner 5 and the petals as in the 

 male flower ; stamens very small, shrivelled and sterile, inserted on 

 the exterior of the disk ; carpels 2, distinct, arising from the base 

 of the deep calyx-tube which completely encloses the oblong ovaries 

 though free from them ; styles about as long as the ovaries, 

 terminal, projecting out of the constricted neck of the calyx- tube ; 

 stigma large, flat, horizontal*, with prominent papillae ; ovule 

 solitary, suspended from the inner angle of the 1 -celled ovary. 

 Fruit a small, indehiscent, ovoid, acute, membranous achene, 

 enclosed in the desiccated calyx-tube, which is crowned, shuttlecock 

 fashion, with the enlarged dry membranous epicalyx, the segments 

 of which are then | inch long and oblong in form, and the shrivelled 

 remains of the inner calyx- segments, petals and stamens. Seed 

 solitary, embryo without endosperm, cotyledons plane-convex, 

 radicle small, superior. 



The flowers are said to be sometimes 4-merous, the petals to be 

 occasionally wanting, and a third carpel has been observed in a 

 few flowers. The fruit has been rarely collected, and the specimens 



