62 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
varying much in thickness and length’ in the different species, or 
even in the same species, according to the sex, and which bears in 
its upper part ten anthers or more, extrorse, two-celled, dehiscing 
by two longitudinal clefts and arranged without any apparent order 
at maturity.” Above these anthers is found the gyneceum, formed 
of five carpels superposed to the divisions of the perianth. The 
ovaries are independent of each other, one-celled with a parietal 
placenta situated in the internal angle. But the styles and their 
stigmatiferous apex of variable form adhere to each other for a 
certain distance to separate at a certain age.* Each placenta bears 
sometimes two ascending anatropous ovules with micropyle exterior 
and inferior, or more generally two ranks of ovules, more or less 
ascending,’ or subhorizontal. Certain flowers are male (figs. 79-83) 
or female (figs. 84, 85) according as the carpels or the stamens are 
arrested sooner or later in their evolution. The fruit (fig. 85) is 
formed of five patulous follicles, radiating in a verticil of variable 
consistence opening at a more or less advanced period, mono- or 
polyspermous ; and the organization of the seeds which they enclose 
presents very great differences according to the species. It is by 
the aid of these characters that Sferculia has been grouped into fifty 
sections or subgenera,’ which are found in all the warm regions of 
the globe. 
Most generally the seed is suborthotropous, or at least very 
incompletely anatropous ; so that the embryo has the summit of the 
cotyledons turned towards the hilum, while it is consequently oblique 
or transverse to the plane of the umbilicus. It is moreover sur- 
rounded by a fleshy albumen which adheres more or less to the 
dorsal side of the cotyledons,’ and to the seminal coats.’ This is 

1 When this column is slender and very long, 
it is often bent in the bud (figs, 80-82). 
? A generic value has been given to this 
want of regularity in the arrangement of the 
androceum at maturity. But earlier the stamens 
have a particular order of arrangement, as we 
have described (in Adansonia, x. 162). The 
pollen, ovoidal, with three folds, when in water, 
becomes spherical, with three papillose hands 
(H. Mout., in Ann. Sc. Nat., sér. 2, iii. 334). 
3 We may suppose, then, that there is but 
one capitate style, the ovaries remaining free. 
4 In this case the micropyle looks downwards 
and outwards. The coat is double. 
5 See SCHoTT, Meletem., loc. cit, The greater 
part of the sections have been considered as dis- 
tinct genera in this work. 
5 The embryo occupies by its cotyledons all 
the extent of the seminal cavity (and often even 
more), which obliges it to bend in a transverse 
section the albumen, and appears separated into 
two parts, which resemble thick cotyledons. 
7 As many as four layers may here be dis- 
tinguished; a fleshy mucilaginous epidermis, a 
thin membrane surrounding the albumen, and 
between them a plate often double, thick coloured, 
and generally testaceous within, 
