266 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



alternate, petlolate, entire ; and flowers disposed in simple or more or 

 less ramified spikes, very variable in form and length, 1 and furnished 

 with bracts more or less developed. They belong to the warm 

 regions of Asia, Africa, and South America. 



Quisqualis (fig. 229-234), climbing shrubs of tropical Asia and 



Africa, have all the charac- 

 ters of the Combreta, except 

 that the receptacular pouch, 

 after enveloping the ovary, 

 is prolonged upwards in a 

 long tube traversed by the 

 style adhering to one side 



Quisqualis indiea. 



Fig. 232. Fruit. Fig. 231. Seed. 



Fig. 233. Long, 

 sect, of fruit. 



of it ; after which it is di- 

 lated to a cup which bears 

 ten stamens with short fila- 

 ments erect at adult ago, 

 and higher up five valvate 

 sepals and five imbricate 

 or contorted petals. The 

 fruit is dry and encloses a single seed, the embryo of which has two 

 fleshy cotyledons, round or channelled externally. The pretty 

 flowers of Qwinqualis are collected in short capituliform spikes more 

 rarely in axillary and terminal clusters. 



In Lumnitzera, trees and shrubs with alternate and coriaceous 

 leaves, growing on the shores of all the tropical seas of the old 

 world, the flowers are hermaphrodite and very analogous to those of 

 Comhretum. The long receptacle, enveloping the ovary, is dilated 

 above the latter in a campanulate cup, the margin of which bears 

 five slightly imbricate persistent sepals and five contorted or imbri- 

 cate petals. Its interior surface is covered with a glandular disk 

 with ten indentations in the upper part, at the bottom of which are 

 inserted the stamens with filaments slightly incurved at the summit, 

 and cordate introrse anthers. The ovules, of which the number 

 varies from two to five, are suspended by a long funicle ; and the 



Fl. Bras. Her. ii. 246, t. 129, 130.— Hook. Icon. 

 t. 392 ; liot. Mag. t. 2911.— Guillem. et Perk. 

 II. Sen. Tent. i. t. 6G, fig. 1 (Poivrea), 67, 68.— 

 Benth. Niger, 337 {Poivrea). — Hahv. T/tes. Cap. 

 t. 71, 75.— Sond. /•'/. Cap. ii. 508, 512 {Puma). 

 — Tul. Ann. Sc. Nat. sér. 4, vi. 76 (Pœvrca), 83 



(Combretum).— Laws. Fl. Trop. Afr. ii. 419, 133 

 (Cacoucia).— Eichl. Mart. Fl. Bras. Comiret. 

 106,120 (Cacoucia), t. 27-32, 34.— Bot. Jin/, t, 

 429, 1165, 1631.— Walp. Hep. ii. 65,68 (Cacou- 

 cia) ; v. 662 ; Ann. i. 290 ; ii. 525 ; iv. 673. 

 1 Those of Cacoucia are very long. 



