386 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
each surmounted by a two-celled introrse anther dehiscing by two 
longitudinal clefts. An elevated conical disk hides all the lower 
part of the gynæceum ; that is to say, the five free oppositipetalous 
ovaries, surmounted by their styles, which starting from the inner 
angle unite among themselves in forming a tubular column, with a 
five-lobed capitate stigmatiferous apex. In the internal angle of 
each ovary is seen a placenta supporting two descending anatropous 
ovules with superior exterior micropyle.' The fruit, accompanied 
by the persistent calyx, consists of five independent bivalved shells, 
the bivalve exocarp thin, although at first fleshy, elastically sepa- 
rating from the pergamenous endocarp at maturity. Hach contains 
two arched seeds with umbilicus rugose, muricate, or tubercular on 
the surface, containing under their coats’? a scanty albumen and a 
large embryo, with short superior fornicate radicle. The cotyledons, 
one dorsal the other central, form numerous folds, and are closely 
enveloped by each other. 
LP. brasiliense presents here and there in cultivation abnormal 
flowers, whose androceum has unequal pieces, one of them sometimes 
sterile. This sterility in a certain number of stamens is the rule in 
most of the other species of this genus. The corolla then becomes 
more or less fornicate ; the lobes of the limb are slightly unequal 
and imbricate. Only two of the five alternipetalous stamens are 
provided with anthers ; and there are belonging to the androceum 
five other sterile tongues, two of which, smaller than the others, are 
superposed to the two divisions of the corolla, and consequently 
belong to another verticil. These facts are especially observed in /. 
hypophyllanthus a species, moreover, remarkable for the position 
of the inflorescence. 
Lrythrochiton consists of glabrous shrubs, with simple or slightly 
ramified stems, five or six species’ of which are known, natives of 
Brazil, Guiana, Columbia, Ecuador. The alternate leaves are 

1 With two coats. 
2 The exterior coat is thin and soft, covered 
with numerous small ribs like short hairs. The 
second layer is a blackish testa, dry and brittle, 
lined inwardly by a thin brownish membrane. 
Under the micropyle on the internal edge of the 
seed a large depression of the testa is seen cor- 
responding with the hilum. A soft white pro- 
jection of the placenta is there inserted. But 
lower towards the region of the chalaza there is 
a sort of operculate circular hard blackish plug, 
above which the external cellular membrane is 
much thinner than elsewhere, and covered less 
abundantly with hairs. ‘This arrangement 
renders more visible this opercule, which recalls 
to some extent that of the seed of Cochlos- 
permum. (See p. 298, note 2). ‘ 
3 Pr. & Linp., in Ann, Se, Nat., sér. 3, xix. 
75.—Bot. Mag., t. 5824. 
4 Hoox., in Bot. Mag., t. 472, — Watp., 
Rep., v. 387 ; Aogn., iv. 410; vii, 506. 
