2 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
floral envelope, green, analogous to a calyx, with five divisions more 
or less deep quincuncially imbricated, or almost valvate. More inter- 
nally is found a second coloured’ petaloid envelope, with a tube more 
or less elongated according to the species, dilated at the base into a kind 
Mirabilis Jalapa. 

Fie, 3. 
Flower, 
Fra. 4. 
Diagram. 
Fia, 2. 
Bud. 
Fia. 5. 
Base of the flower, lon- 
gitudinal section (3). 
of sac, and spreading out above into a funnel-shaped limb, of which 
the five divisions are deeply induplicate-contorted.* The androceum 
is formed of five stamens, alternating with the divisions of the inner 
envelope. They are generally of unequal length, each composed of 
a filament, free in all its upper portion, surmounted by a bilocular 
introrse anther, with two cells dehiscing by longitudinal submarginal 
clefts? Below, these filaments sometimes adhere to the tube of the 
perianth, and, quite at their base, unite into a short thick tube, fleshy 
in certain species, and more or less urceolate and glandular.‘ This 

t. 17-19.—Cnoisy, in DC. Prodr., xiii. sect. ii. 
427.— Payer, Organog., 297. — Admirabilis 
Cuus., Hist., ii, 87.—Nyctage V. Roy., Lugd., 
417.—Jalapa T., Inst., 129, t. 50.—ADANS., 
Fam. des Pl., ii. 265.—Nyctago J., Gen., 90; 
in Ann. Mus., ii. 274 (incl.: Acleisanthes A, 
Gray, Quamoclidion CHors.). 
1 White, pink, violet purple yellowish, or 
spotted with these different colours. 
2 The lobes, properly speaking, are but 
slightly prominent. Their midrib corresponds 
to the five projecting ribs found all along the 
perianth, and ending in a more or less acute 
little point, It is between these apices that the 
limb expands into five petaloid laminæ, which 
are reduplicate-contorted in the bud (often 
wrongly described as lobes of the calyx) while 
the real body of the petal is valvate. 
3 The pollen-grains are large and spherical. 
Their outer coat is “firm, punctate with many 
pores” (H. Mout, in Ann. Se. Nat., sér. 2, iii. 
313). “ Pollen granulosum luteum” (Cuots., 
Prodr., 426). 
4 Often described, for this reason (but 
wrongly), as a dise, this organ is quite inde- 
pendent of the hypogynous dise, which is repre- 
sented in several species by a slight thickening 
of the base of the ovary itself. 
