32 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
III. AGDESTIS SERIES. 
The flowers of <Agdeslis' (fig. 44) are hermaphrodite, regular, 
tetramerous, with a concave obconical receptacle in which the ovary 
is contained, while four sepals are epigynically inserted upon the 
margin; they are imbricate-decussate in the bud, reflexed after 
anthesis. Within the calyx are found an indefinite number of 
stamens, each formed of a slender filament, and a slightly introrse 
anther, with two elongated cells attenuated and free towards their 
two extremities. The inferior ovary has four cells superposed to the 
sepals, and in each is seen towards the base an ascending ovule with 
micropyle looking downwards and outwards. The ovary is sur- 
mounted by a style conical at the base, then cylindrical, erect, sepa- 
rated above into four curved branches, stigmatiferous within. The 
fruit is hitherto unknown. The only species of this genus which 
represents, as is seen, a Péytolacca with tetramerous flowers, and 
an inferior ovary and carpels all united, is the 4. clematidea Mog. 
AND Sess., a climbing shrub of Mexico which has the appearance of 
certain other. sarmentose Phytolaccee such as Seguieria, and above 
all Ledenbergia. This plant, consequently, 
has not in its organs of vegetation any 
of the ordinary characteristics of the climb- 
ing Dilleniacee with which it was errone- 
ously connected at a time when the orga- 
nization of its flowers was very imperfectly 
known. Its glabrous, slender branches 
have alternate simple petiolate leaves and 
flowers collected in the axils of the leaves or 
at the summit of the branches, in more or 
‘ia ees flower (4), less ramified racemose cymes. Each slender 
pedicel, like several axes of the inflorescence, 
bears under the flower two lateral bractlets. 
Agdestis clematidea. 


1 Mog. et Srss., Fl. Mex. Med. (ex DC. Syst, i. 543; Prodr., i. 103).—ENDL., Gen. 
n. 4684.—B. H., Gen., 33. 
