MALV ACE. 85 
a tolerably large number of secondary genera, having its general 
organization, and only distinguished from it by very unimportant 
characters. Their flowers are hermaphrodite and pentamerous, with 
a very much developed, coloured valvate-reduplicate calyx, provided 
with five projecting angles or five wings, short in the bud. The 
petals are little visible, much smaller than the sepals and squamose ; 
or they are altogether wanting in certain species. Five fertile 
stamens, slightly monadelphous, are superposed to them, each pro- 
vided with a short filament and a two-celled anther.’ They alternate 
with very short staminodes, which are often entirely wanting. The 
gynæceum is composed of five oppositipetalous carpels, or more 
rarely of three carpels, the two lateral ones being wanting; and the 
ovary contains two collateral ascending ovules, with exterior and 
inferior micropyle and two vertical series of ovules. The style has 
a stigmatiferous apex, entire or scarcely lobed. The fruit is dry, 
capsular, and loculicidal; and the seeds, often arillate enclose 
under their coats a straight embryo surrounded by a fleshy albu- 
men. ZLasiopetalum consists of Australian shrubs, covered with 
stellate hairs, with alternate, rarely opposite, entire, dentate sinuous, 
or rarely lobed leaves, accompanied by very small glanduliform 
stipules, scarcely visible, or very large and foliaceous. The flowers 
are grouped in terminal, leaf-opposed or lateral, simple, or compound 
false-racemes formed of cymes, often uniparous. Hach flower is accom- 
panied by a bract, or by two lateral bractlets, the union of which 
sometimes resembles a calyx. ‘Twenty species’ of this genera are 
described. 
In Lasiopetalum, and the two allied genera, Guichenotia and Lysio- 
petalum, forming with them the subseries (Zwlasiopetaleæ), the anthers 
open by very short clefts or pores. In Zhomasiee (Thomasia, figs. 

1 The anthers often have grooves of extrorse 
dehiscence; but their apex turns back upon the in- 
ternal face of the anther for a short distance, and 
it is this which makes the dehiscence. The short 
clefts’ have been often described as pores (see 
as to the peculiarities of the anthers of Lasiope- 
talee, Adansonia, ii. 179 ; ix. 342). The pollen is 
the same as that of TAeobroma, Guazuma, &e. 
(H. Mout., in Ann. Se, Nat, sér. 2, iii. 334). 
2 The exostome thickens early into a caruncle. 
Besides which, the raphe also presents an arillate 
elongated thickening in certain Lastopetalee. 
3 RUDGE, in Trans. Linn. Soc., x. 297, t. 12. 
—VENTEN., Jard. Malmais., t. 59.—SmM., in 
Andr. Bot. Repos., t. 208.—Srnup., in Pl. 
Preiss., i. 235,—STEETZ., in Pl. Preiss., ii, 339. 
—Hook., Journ. Bot., ii. 414.—Turcz,, in Bull. 
Mose, (1852), ii. 145.—Hoox. ¥., Fl. Tusm., i. 
51.—F. Muett., Pl. Vict.,i, 36 (Corethrostylis), 
143, t. 3; Fragm., ii. 5—Bentu., Fl. Austral., 
1. 257.— Bot. Reg. (1844), t. 47 (Corethrostylis). 
— Bot. Mag., t. 1766, 3908.—Watpr., Rep. i. 
336; v. 110; Ann., ii. 164; iv. 321; vii. 437. 
