RHAMNAOEJS. 53 



triangular, thick, valvate, and the petals, alternate, small, flat, or 

 spoon-shaped, are induplicated in the hud, or do not even touch, or 

 replaced by three very narrow tongues, they may, in certain species, 

 entirely disappear, The stamens, equal in number to the petals, 

 are superposed (fig. 41) to and enveloped by them, each being 

 formed of a short filament and a bilocular, introrse anther dehiscing 

 by two longitudinal clefts. 1 The gynsecium, inferior but free, con- 

 sists of an ovary with two, three, or four cells (sterile in the male 

 flower), surmounted by a style more or less deeply divided into 

 obtuse lobes and stigmatiferous at the summit. In each cell, at 

 the base of the internal angle, are inserted one or, very rarely, two 3 

 ascending, anatropous 3 ovules. The micropyle is at first directed 

 downwards and inwards ; but, in consequence of a twist more or 

 less decided, it often becomes lateral, as also the raphe, which is at 

 first dorsal. The fruit is a drupe, at the base of which is seen a 

 circular scar corresponding to the margin of the persistent and non- 

 accrescent receptacle, enclosing, in a sarcocarp sometimes partitioned, 

 one or four monospermous stones, often thin, membranous or parch- 

 ment-like, often inferiorly incomplete, indéhiscent or irregularly 

 dehiscent. The seeds enclose under their integuments 1, a fleshy 

 albumen which surrounds an embryo with a short inferior radicle. 

 The cotyledons are flat and fleshy (IVangula), or foliaceous and 

 recurved at the margin, in such a manner that one more or less 

 envelops in its hollow the other which bounds internally a large 

 vertical furrow. The albumen is sometimes wanting, and the thick 

 cotyledons then become plano-convex. More than fifty species of 



—Hook. FI. Ind. i. G38.— Alatcrnus T. Inst. 4 The external seminal coat is membranous or 



595, t. 366.— Frangula T. hist. 612, t. 383.— more or less thick and coriaceous, sometimes the 



Mœsch. Mcth. Siippl. 271.— Gjertx. he. cit. same throughout, sometimes traversed by a deep 



t. 106.— A. Gray, Gen. III. t. 167 .—Mnrcorella vertical furrow: In like manner the transverse 



Neck. Elem. n. 799.— CWî'ofe/us Rafin. Xeog. section of the seed has nearly the form of a 



(1825), n. 2.— ? Sciadophila Phil. Linncea, crescent, sometimes much curved, sometimes 



xxviii. 61 8.— ? Rhamnella Mia. A un.Mus. Lugd.- circular or oval. There are, however, all posil a e 



Bat. iii. 30 {Microrhammis Maxim, not A. Gray). transitions between these diverse configurations. 



1 In all the Rhamnaceoi observed, the The raphe also may be dorsal, lateral, or even 

 pollen grains were ovoid, with three folds and ventral. Below, the external coat of the seed 

 in water spherical with three papillary bands. often thickens into a sort of aril which may 

 (H. Mom,. Ann. Se. Nat. sér. 2, iii. 338). even extend acr03s the Told whlch tho P utamen 



2 Payer has seen, in the same ovary, one presents below. On the organisation of the 

 placenta bearing two ovules; another, only seeds of -K/«rmK!« and of many other genera of 

 one ; and a third, none. Finally each cell con- this family, see : Benn. PI. Jav. Rar. 131.— J. 

 tained one ovule. G- Ao - Theor. Syst. 178, t. 15.— Miers, Contrit. 



3 The coat is double. h 230. t. 33. 



