170 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
and five alternate petals, imbricated in the bud, sessile, but tapering 
at the base, which in certain species is thickened and glandular. 
The stamens, indefinite in number, are all nearly free, or obscurely 
united at the base into five oppositipetalous bundles. The filaments 
are inserted close against the corolla ; their summit is divided into 
two very short divergent branches, each of which supports a distinct 
anther-cell, extrorse and dehiscing longitudinally.’ The free and 
superior gynæceum, inserted immediately above the stamens, is com- 
posed of an ovary with five alternipetalous cells, surmounted by a 
style slightly dilated, quinquedentate, stigmatiferous at the apex. 
In each cell, more or less complete,’ there are two ascending ana- 
Tilia sylvestris. 

Fra. 181. 
Long. sect. of flower. 
Fre. 180. 
Diagram. 
Fra. 179. 
Flower (2). 
tropous ovules inserted towards the internal angle, ascendent and ana- 
tropous, the micropyle being directed downwards and outwards.’ The 
fruit is dry,’ indehiscent, containing one or a very small number of 
seeds, which enclose under their coats’ a fleshy albumen enveloping 
an embryo with large, superior, foliaceous, lobed’ cotyledons, whose 
summit and edges are more or less irregularly incurved and involute. 

1 The pollen is ellipsoidal, flattened, slightly 
triangular, with a large halo and a small pore 
on each face ; it differs thus from that of the 
other Viliacee where it is ovoid with three folds, 
and in water ovoid or spherical with three bands 
each bearing a papilla. Its external envelope is 
finely cellulose in Grewia, and punctuate in 
Elæocarpus, Sloanea, Luhea, Triumfetta, Cor- 
chorus and Sparmannia. (H. Moux., in Ann. 
Se. Nat., sér. 2, iii, 333.) 
2 The placentas, which are always parietal 
when young, join sooner or later, more or less 
completely, according to the axis of the ovary ; 
in this way the upper part is quite different 
from the lower which has another origin, for it 
arises directly from the floral axis, (See 
Payer, Organog., 24.) 
3 They have two coats. 
4 Or rather its mesocarp is represented at 
first by a slight fleshy layer, finally becoming 
dry. 
5 They are three-fold. The testa is thick 
and crustaceous ; its internal edge often bears 
a large irregular impression (fig. 183). 
5 Digitinerved at the base. 
