322 MR. J. MIERS ON THE HIPPOCRATEACEA OF SOUTH AMERICA. 
The disk forms an essential feature, presenting generally a very distinguishing character 
in each genus; it is always seated on the torus, wholly adnate to it, or partially free 
below, where its margin becomes expanded into a broad rim: in Hippocratea it forms a 
tall, solid, fleshy cone, externally tomentous, and hollowed at its summit for the recep- 
tion of the stamens and ovary; in Raddia, Prionostemma and Thermophila it is glabrous, 
pulvinate, hollowed in the centre, where the stamens and ovary are seated, and expanded 
around the base into a broad marginal rim, which is free, with the claws of the petals 
inserted beneath it; in Hylenea, and several other genera, it forms a short, glabrous, thin, 
cylindrical, or hollow cup, around the base of the stamens, frequently concealing the 
depressed ovary: there is a modification of this latter form in Kippistia, where it is much 
shorter than the ovary, and adnate to it in all parts except at three regular intervals, 
where it is free, forming there three lip-shaped projections opposite to as many stamens, 
which are inserted within them. The stamens are constantly three in number, with one 
exception, where they are five; the filaments, generally much flattened, widen gradually 
towards the base, where their edges sometimes nearly touch each other; they are double 
or three times the length of the disk, often gradually curved outwardly, so that the 
anther points down wards; or more rarely they are erect; they are often terminated by a 
fleshy connective, which is sometimes excurrent at the apex: the anthers are frequently 
large, reniformly transverse, somewhat 4-lobed, cruciately sulcated, seated on an almost 
obsolete connective, which gives them an extrorse position ; it opens along its transverse 
furrow into two valves, reflected upwards and downwards, thus forming a flattened 
rosette, showing in the middle four polliniferous masses separated by an obsolete cruci- 
form division: sometimes the anther stands erect upon a cuneiform connective, and opens 
vertically by a transverse furrow, leaving it compressedly campanulate and almost 1- 
celled ; in other cases the anther is formed of two distinct lobes, affixed dorsally and 
extrorsely upon the filament or its connective, each lobe opening by a longitudinal 
or transverse fissure. Up to the period of maturity of the fruit the stamens remain 
persistent on the summit of the disk, which forms its stipitate support; the ovary is 
always superior, short, depressed, often almost concealed within the disk, subeonical and 
subtrigonoid, 3- (rarely 6-)celled, each cell alternate with the stamens, containing four to 
ten ascending anatropous ovules in two collateral series, fixed in the axis, and with a 
ventral raphe: more rarely only one or two ovules are suspended from the apex, or are 
erect in the base of each cell. The mode of insertion of the ovules, formerly considered 
a distinguishing character of the family, is therefore no longer of any importance. The 
style is generally very short, rarely longer than the ovary, and is obtusely terminated by 
a small stigma of three roundish lobes, or by three minute, somewhat erect, teeth; or 
covered by its neighbours; the left margin of No. 5 points outwardly, while its right margin is covered by No. 1. 
One of the stamens stands opposite to petal 1, another between 2 and 3, while the third is between 4 and 5. 
M. Payer fancies, in the reduction in the number of the stamens from five to three, a considerable analogy 
towards the structure of Cucurbitaceæ, where four of its five stamens become confluent in two pairs, leaving the fifth 
free; but there is not the slightest indication of any such confluence in the three stamens of Hippocrateaceæ, which 
are all alike and all quite free. i 
