428 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



74. Dobinea Ham.^ — Flo^yers dioecious ; male calyx saccate, 4- 

 dentate at apex, valvate. Petals 4, atteuuate at base, inserted under 

 the rudiment of the gynseceum, imbricate. Stamens 8, inserted in 

 2-series with the petals ; 4 opposite the petals, shorter ; filaments 

 free ; anthers introrse, sub-2-dymous, 2-rimose. Female flowers 

 without perianth; gynaeceum sessile in axil of bract; germ en l-lo- 

 cular, surrounded at base by unequal disk, posteriorly more developed ; 

 style apical slender, spirally involute to apex and stigmatose within ; 

 ovule descendent from internal angle of the germen ; micropyle in- 

 trorsely superior. Fruit dry compressed, unequally orbiculate, girt 

 with membranous aliform margin, indéhiscent; seed 1, descendent; 

 testa membranous; cotyledons of exalbuminous curved embryo ellip- 

 tical rather thick ; radicle accumbeut. — A slu'ub ; branches virgate ; 

 leaves opposite petiolate ovately lanceolate serrate penninerved reti- 

 culate ; flowers crowded in terminal nutant very composite ramose 

 cymiferous racemes ; each female supported by a (coloured) anterior 

 adnate bract, fructiferous very accrete dilated subfoliiform (samaroid) 

 membranous costate reticulately venose.'^ — {Mountainous India? 



1 i)o«, Prodr. Fl. Nepal. 249. — Enbl. Gen. n. - &. genus of very douttful place. 



5560.— B. H. Qeii. 410, n. 62. ' Spec. 1. B. oppositifolin Don, loc. cit. 



