RHAMNAGEJE. 



59 



IL GOUANIA SEKIES. 



Gouania ' (fig. 54) consists of Rhamnaceœ with an inferior ovary 

 not free. The floral receptacle has the form of a sac in the concavity 

 of which the adherent gynœciuni is lodged, whilst the perianth and 

 andrœcium are inserted near its opening above an epigynous disk 

 with five alternipetalous lobes, often very prominent. 3 The triangu- 

 lar sepals, five in number, are valvate in the 

 bud. With these alternate five small bowl- 

 like petals sheltering in their concavity the 

 superposed stamens. The latter are epigy- 

 nous, formed of a free filament, inflexed in 

 the bud, and a bilocular anther, with lateral or 

 extrorse dehiscence, sometimes furnished with 

 a salient glandular interior. The ovary has 

 three cells, each containing one ovule of 

 Ehamnus, and is surmounted by a style more ¥i „ 64 rruit r,\ 



or less deeply divided into three stigmatife- 



rous branches. The fruit is completely inferior and crowned with 

 the remains or scars of the perianth ; it is a capsule with 

 three cells and furnished with three wide vertical rounded wings. 

 At the time of the separation of the fruit, these divide into three 

 cocci, in such a manner that the latter are bordered with a thin 

 half-wing. They are otherwise indéhiscent and leave on the 

 receptacle a slender columella which divides into six filaments. 

 Each encloses an obovate seed compressed inwards, plano-convex, 

 with a smooth, testaceous external envelope containing a scanty 

 fleshy albumen and an axile embryo, with a short inferior radicle 

 and broad rounded cotyledons, slightly flattened. The Gouania 

 to the number of some thirty species, 3 inhabit the hottest regions of 

 both worlds. They are generally climbing shrubs which attach 

 themselves to neighbouring objects by tendrils representing sterile 



1 JAca. Amer. 261.— L. Gen. n. 1157.— J. 

 Gen. 381. — GrŒRTN. r. Fruct. iii. 19. — Lamk. 

 Diet. iii. 4; Suppl. ii. 819; III. t. 845.— DC. 

 Prodi: ii. 38. — Ad. Be. Rkamn. 71. t. 5. — Endl. 

 Gen. n. 5746.— B. H. Gen. 385, n. 35.— H. Bn. 

 Payer Fam. Nat. 329.— Hook. Fl. Ind. i. 643. 



— Baker Fl. Maurit. 52. — Retinaria Gjertn. 

 Fruct. ii. 187, t. 120, fig. i.—Nœgclia Zoll. et 

 Moritz. J'erz. 20.— Hassk. Flora (1852), 114. 



- They may even rise along the internal face 

 of the sepals, to which they adhere. 



3 Wight and Arn. Prodi: i. 166. — Wight, 



