236 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
imbricated in præfloration. The androceum is formed of an indefinite 
number of stamens, the filaments adhering to the base of the corolla” 
and united among themselves for a short variable distance below, or 
almost entirely free, especially in the most interior stamens, the anthers 
of which first extrorse, then versa- 
tile, have a thick connective, oval 
or almost cordiform, bearing on the 
edges two narrow cells, each dehis- 
cing by a longitudinal cleft.? The 
gynæceum is superior, free, com- 
posed of an ovary generally three- 
celled, surmounted by a hollow 
style, divided at a variable part 
of its height into three tubular 
branches, the sumimit furnished 
with a small surface of stigmatife- 
rous tissue. In the internal angle 
of each ovary cell (superposed when 
they are three in number, to the 
sepals 1, 2, 3) there is a placenta 
generally supporting four ovules, incompletely anatropous,* more or 
less descendent, and arranged in pairs in such a way that the two 
ovules of each pair turn back to back, and look at each other by 
their short raphe (fig. 252). The fruit long, green, and fleshy, 
becomes at length a loculicidal capsule (fig. 248) with three ora 
smaller number of cells each containing one or two seeds. These 
enclose under their thick coats* a large fleshy oily embryo, the plano- 
convex cotyledons of which completely surround the gemmule. 
In certain Teas the petals and the stamens are united into a tube 
for a greater distance. The ovary cells are three or four in number, 
Thea chinensis, 

Kia. 251. 
Gynæceum (+). 
Fi. 252. 
Gynæceum, one cell 
open. 
(in Soc. Phys. de Gen., xiv, 149).—PAYER, 2 The pollen grains are ovoid with three folds, 
Organog., 532, t. 149.—B. H., Gen., 187.—H. 
By., in Payer Fam. Nat., 265.—SrerM., in Trans. 
Linn, Soc, xxii, 347 (incl.: Calpandria Bu, 
Camellia L., Cordyloblaste HENscu. (?), Sas- 
sangua N&Es).—Tsia KæMpr., Amen., 606.— 
ADANS., Fam. des Pl., ii, 450. 
1 This adherence is very slight or almost nil in 
the five stamens more anterior than the others 
and superposed to the petals ; or in five groups of 
several stamens, the number of which is variable, 
each keeping the same place, 
and in water they become spherical with three 
bands, and bear three papillae, (H. Mont,, in 
Ann. Se. Nat., sér. 2, iii, 333.) 
3 They have two coats. 
4 The exterior is bard, crustaceous, brown or 
blackish, It often has faces due to the reciprocal 
pressure of the different neighbouring grains, 
Within is found another coat, much softer, some- 
times almost suberose, traversed by five fibro-vas- 
cular ramified bundles. 
