432 'NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



five shorter being superposed to the petals ; they ai'e each formed 

 of a filament, free or united below to the neighbouring filaments, 

 and an introrse anther, dehiscent by two longitudinal clefts. The 

 superior ovary has three or, more rarely, four cells, separated from 

 one another externally by deep vertical grooves, and surmounted 

 by an equal number of apical, subulate, styline branches, whose 

 pointed extremity is stigmatiferous. In the internal angle of each 

 cell a descendent ovule is inserted above, whose micropyle is 

 jn'imarily turned upwards and inwards. The fruit is capsular, three 

 or four coccous ; and each coccus, dehiscent longitudinally at its back, 

 contains a glabrous seed whose fleshy embryo has two cotyledons 

 folded back towards the middle of their height and incumbent on the 

 radicle. The albumen is wanting or nearly so (fig. 435). The 

 GalpMmia are frutescent or sufirutescent plants from the warm parts 

 of both Americas. The leaves are opposite, entire or dentate, often 

 having two glands at the base of the limb or towards the summit 

 of the petiole. The flowers are arranged in terminal clusters, with 

 articulate pedicels, and accompanied by lateral bracteoles. In 

 certain Galphimia., gonerically separated under the name of Bleplia- 

 randra, the stamens, instead of being glabrous, have all their parts 

 covered with abundant hairs. The Tkryallu^ climbing shrubs fi'om 

 Brazil, have the flower of GalpMmia^ but their styline branches are 

 terminated by a stigmatiferous swelling ; the cells of the dry fruit 

 do not open, and around it persist the accrescent sepals, which, when 

 young, were strongly imbricate, as well as the petals. In Lasio- 

 carpus., an upright shiaib, not climbing, of Mexico, the floral cha- 

 racters are said to be the same as in the preceding types, the stamens 

 remaining glabrous in all their parts, but the styline branches being 

 filiform, bifid, and tortuous at their stigmatiferous apex, and the 

 fruit globular, membranous, completely covered with branching 

 purplish hairs. 



The small group of Spachcœ also presents the same floral organi- 

 sation ; but the triangular and nearly valvate or slightly imbricate 

 sepals, are fiu-nished below and outside with one or, much oftener, 

 two collateral and sessile glands. In the Spachea themselves, 

 small shrubs from tropical America, the anthers are destitute of 

 appendages, and the styline branches, two or three in number, are 

 terminated by a truncate or slightly swollen extremity ; whilst in 



