MYRTACE.E. 



317 



(fig. 294) instead of alternate. They are also Oceanic shrubs, often 

 ericoid. The embryo has small cotyledons relatively to the radicle 

 which is thick and swollen. Hypocalymna, the ovarian cells of which 

 enclose from one or two to an indefinite number of ovules, has been 

 generically separated more especially because the stamens were 

 thought to be monadelphous. But if the greater part of them are, 

 in fact, slightly united by the base of the filaments, there are also 

 some which are entirely independent. Scholtzia has also been dis- 

 tinguished as a genus because the placenta bears from two to four 

 ovules and the receptacle scarcely rises above the ovary ; we can 

 only consider both as sections of the genus Bœclcea. 



In Astartca. which perhaps ought no longer to be separated from 

 Bcechea, all the characters of vegetation and of floration are similar ; 

 but the stamens are pentadelphous, each group corresponding to the 

 intervals of the petals. In Balaustion, native, like Astartea, of 

 Australia, the leaves and flowers (rather large) are equally those of 

 Bœckea ; but the receptacle has the form of a large urceolate sac at 

 the bottom of which is the ovary, and at the throat are inserted the 

 perianth and pentamerous andrcecium. 



Melaleuca (fig. 295, 296) gives its name to a small group of genera, 



Melaleuca fahjes. 



Fig. 295. Flower (j). 



Figr. 296. Long. sect, of flower. 



numerous in species, in which the flowers often have the stamens 

 united in as many exserted groups as the flower has parts, and these 

 groups are oppositipetalous. Melaleuca has the same number of 

 multiovulate, rarely uniovulate, cells, with the ovules inserted in the 

 internal angle, in two or more series, arranged on a vertical or 

 peltate placenta, with short, horizontal or more or less oblique sup- 

 port. There are some whose stamens are scarcely united in bundles 



