26 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
Thus defined,’ the genus Phytolacca includes a dozen species’ in- 
habiting the warm and temperate regions of Africa, Asia, Oceania, 
and America. 
The flowers of Ærcilla are very analogous to those of certain 
Phytolacce. Their receptacle is in the form of a little cup with 
edges scarcely turned up, while the centre rises into a cone bearing 
the gyneceum. The perianth inserted upon the margin is formed 
of five unequal coloured sepals, arranged in the bud in quincuncial 
prefloration. The stamens are inserted in the same way, each 
formed of a free filament, and bilocular introse anther, dehiscing by 
two longitudinal clefts. Their number varies in 7. volubilis from 
eight to eleven. Five of them alternating with the sepals consti- 
tute an exterior verticil A second verticil is formed of three 
stamens nearer the interior, superposed to sepals 3, 4, and 5, but 
opposite to sepals 1, 2, and when there are from four to six pieces in 
the inner verticil it is because two or three of its stamens are replaced 
by a pair of these organs. The gynæceum is composed of five 
carpels superposed to the sepals; each of them formed of a unilo- 
cular ovary inserted on the raised part of the receptacle and 
attenuated above into a style, the inner angle being traversed 
by a longitudinal groove descending quite to the base of the ovary, 
the thick reflexed lips of which are covered all over with stigmatic 
papille. The number of carpels is not always five.’ In the in- 
ternal angle of each ovary, quite close to the base is a placenta sup- 
porting a single ascending anatropous ovule with the micropyle 

571.—WaALtL., Cat., n. 6959 (Rivina).—HorrM., 
in Comm. Gett., xii. 27, t. 3.—Lnér., Stirp., i. 
1 PHYTOLACCA : 
1. Euphytolacca (MoQ.). Fruit single, 
globose-depressed, costate. Herbs 
with erect racemes. 
2. Omalopsis (MoQ.). Fruit single, 
not costate. Racemes pendent at 
the summit, 
3. Pircuniastrum (MoQ.). Fruit with 
free carpels. Racemes erect or 
pendent, 
4. Pseudolacca (Mog.). Flowers 
dicecious, carpels free except at 
the base. Racemes pendent. 
2 Kæmpr., Amen., 828 (Jamma Gobo)— 
Mayen, Meth., Suppl., 107.—H. B. K., Nov. 
Gen. et Spec., ii. 183.—SPRENG., Syst., ii. 467, 
n. 5 (Glinus).—Fonsx., Fl, Æg.-Arab., 58, n. 
95 (Pharnaceum).—Swerr, Hort. Brit., ed. 3, 
Sect. 4. 
143, t. 69; 145, t. 70.—Rfim., in C. Gay F1. 
Chil. v. 257 (Pireunia), 259. 
3 A, Juss., in Ann. Se. Nat., sér, 1, xxv. 11, 
t. 3.—Don, in Ldinb. New Phil. Journ., xiii. 
237.—Moa., Prodr., 34.— Erceilia ENDL., Gen., 
n. 5263.— Bridgesia Hoox. et ARN., in Bot. 
Mise., iii. 168, t. 102.— Galvezia BERTER., mss. 
(ex Mog.). 
+ Of which, perhaps with reason, a section 
only might be made. 
5 Exceptionally these stamens may be the only 
ones which subsist. 
5 One or several carpels may in fact be re- 
placed by a pair; so much tendency is there to 
deduplication in these plants. 

