NATURAL HISTUliY OF PLANTS. 



in a sort of spoon-shaped bowl on which is inserted one of the pieces 

 of the calyx, the smallest of all/ whilst the four other sepals, ante- 

 terior and lateral, are more developed. All are quincuncially im- 

 bricate in the bud. With them alternate four or five i)ctals (the 

 anterior may be wanting,-) like narrow fleshy tongues, more or less 



Mclitnithus mffjor. 



Fig. 409. Flower. Fig. 410. Flower, a Fig. 411. Fig. 412. Longitudinal Fig. 413. Yoxing 

 sepal folded back. Diagram . .section of flower. fruit. 



tomentose. The receptacle is adorned inwardly by a glandular disk 

 rising in a projecting double ridge on the side of sepal 2, and secret- 

 ing an abundant sweet nectar. The stamens are four, superposed 

 to the sepals 1, 3, 4, and 5; they are unequal, the two anterior 

 being finally the shortest, and the two posterior may be completely 

 united below by a transverse fillet ; each is formed of a free decli- 

 nate filament and a bilocular introrse anther dehiscent by two lon- 

 gitudinal clefts. The free, slightly excentric, gyna?ceum is formed 

 by an ovary with four cells se^^arated outwardly by vertical grooves. 

 Two of them are lateral, the other two anterior and posterior. Each 

 of them exhibits in its internal angle a placenta supporting two ver- 

 tical series of ascendent, anatropal ovules, having the micropyle 

 directed downwards and outwards.^ There are one or two on each 

 series. The fruit, accompanying for a longer or shorter time the 

 perianth and staminal filaments (fig. 413), is a papyraceous capsule, 

 with four projecting lobes and four cells opening longitudinally and 

 inwardly above. They generally contain an exarillate seed, having 



57 ; Suppl. iii. 646.— G^-ktn. Fiuct. iii. 158, t. 

 211.— DC. Prodi: i. 708.— A. Juss. Mém. Mus. 

 xii. 459, t. 28, fig. 48.— Lindl.Tc^. Kiiigd. 479. 

 — Endl. Gcii- n. 6043. — Payer, Oigaiwg. 86, t. 

 18.— B. H. Ocn. 411, n. 69.— Schnizl. leotiogr. 

 t. 253 «.— Lem. et DcNE. Tr. Gén. 228.— Diple- 



risma Pl. Trans. Lhm. Soc. xx. 416, t. 20, fig. 

 15-20. 



' It is sepal 2. 



2 It exists at the commencement, but may be 

 aiTCsted at a very early period of its evolution. 



^ With double coat. 



