174 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
are, for example, four or five superposed to the sepals and a like 
number alternate. In a Japanese species, the type of the genus 
Corchoropsis, the stamens with anthers definitely 
extrorse are not only limited in number, five 
among them being superposed to the sepals and 
five or sometimes ten to the petals; but five of the 
most interior stamens superposed to the petals 
become sterile, petaloid, with the form of sub- 
spathulate tongues. But it is not more necessary 
to generically distinguish this species from Cor- 
chorus than it seems to be to separate from the 
other Limes those species of this latter genus which have petaloid 
plates within the fertile stamens. 
Another extremely variable character in the 
genus Corchorus is the form of the fruit. This is 
generally elongated and siliquiform, the cells 
having single cavities; but sometimes it becomes 
short, even globular, or nearly so, and its cells may 
be divided by false partitions into demi-cells, or 
ÆEntelea arborescens. 

Fra. 191. 
Flower, 
Corchorus nitens. 

into small secondary cells which separate the seeds 
one from another. 
The form of the floral receptacle is variable in 
this genus. Most generally it is raised but very little above the 
insertion of the perianth, so that the stamens are inserted almost on 
a level with it. But in a certain number of species, 
Corchorus hirsutus. œenerally inseparable however from the others, as 
C. hirsutus (fig. 193), the receptacle, after bearing 
the corolla, is elevated in the form of a cylindrical 
column, the summit being dilated into a kind of 
flattened capital or circular disk, upon which the 
Fia. 192. 
Flower. 
gynæceum is placed, surrounded by the insertion of 
the stamens. It is by this character that the 
genus Corchorus intimately connects the preceding 
types with those which, like Grewia and other 
genera, that we shall now proceed to study, and 
which have been united into the section of Grewiee, 
Be ae believed to be especially characterized by this parti- 
Flower, without the 3 ? 
perianth (3). cular form of the receptacle, and in which the 

