PEN2EAGE32. il 7 



tropal and primarily the micropyle is directed downwards and 

 inwards so that the raphe is dorsal ; but later a slight twist occurs 

 which causes the raphes to approach, whilst the micropyles become 

 more or less lateral. The fruit, to which the perianth remains for a 

 longer or shorter time persistent and accrescent, is capsular, loculi- 

 cidal, separating into four equal valves extending from the base to 

 the summit of the persistent style. Each cell contains one or two 

 ascending seeds, the coats of which enclose a fleshy large-footed 

 embryo, nearly conical, with inferior obtuse or depressed radicle, and 

 two very short superior cotyledons, separated from each other by a 

 vertical cleft scarcely visible (fig. 65, 66). The Penœas are small 

 suffrutescent and cricoid plants from South Africa. Their persistent 

 leaves are opposite, entire, coriaceous, sessile or nearly so, accom- 

 panied by two very small blackish glanduliform stipules. The 

 flowers are solitary in the axils of the upper leaves of branches, 

 which are often transformed to coloured bracts, so that the whole 

 constitutes a small terminal spike. Each is accompanied by two 

 lateral bracteoles. 1 



In some species, as P. ericoides and fruticidosa, the gynœcium 

 differs from that of the Penœas proper, in that the back of each 

 carpellary leaf presents only a more or less salient angle, instead of 

 being prolonged to a vertical, membranous irregularly slashed wing, 

 extending from the stigmatic lobe nearly to the top of the ovary (fig. 

 61-63). For this reason they have been separated generically under 

 the name of Stylapterus ; - but we can make of them only a section 

 of the genus Pencea. Thus understood, the latter comprises seven or 

 eight species. 3 



The Sarcocols, plants of the same country, with the same foliage 

 and the same habit as Pencea, with which they were formerly 

 classed, have generally larger flowers, the petaloid perianth of 

 which has a cylindrical tube, surmounted by a limb with four re- 

 duplicate-valved lobes. In the Sarcocols proper, such as S. formosa, 

 fucata, the tube is elongated and the stamens have a long filament ; 



1 If there are four instead of two, the lateral 3 L. Spec. ed. 2, 162. — L. f. Suppl. 121. — 

 are the more exterior, and the interior are, one Thunb. Fl. Cap. 149. — Vent. Malmais, t. 87. — 

 anterior and the other posterior {P. Jruiicu- Meissn. Hook. Joum. (1843), 456 iw.— Meerb. 

 losa). Icon. t. 51. — Lodd. Bot. Cab. t. 1770. — Krauss, 



2 A. Jess. loc. cit. 23, t. 1, fig. 2.— A. DC. Flora (1845), 76. 

 Prodr. xiv. 486. 



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