454 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
these is found a descending seed, the coats' covering a fleshy embryo 
with short superior radicle and plano-convex cotyledons. In the 
male flowers, the carpels remain rudimentary and sterile, and the 
stamens are, as in the hermaphrodite flowers, provided with long 
pendant filaments. In the female flowers, on the contrary, the sta- 
mens are sterile, short, and erect. 
C. myrtifolia is a glabrous shrub, with square angular branches, 
bearing opposite, simple, entire leaves, 3-5-nerved at the base, pro- 
vided with a short petiole, accompanied by two very small caducous, 
lateral stipules. The flowers are arranged in racemes at the summit 
of the leafy branches. Each is supported by a pedicel, accompanied 
by two lateral caducous bractlets. Among the species of the genus, 
three or four in number,’ inhabiting the Mediterranean region, Cen- 
tral Eastern Asia, New Zealand, and South Western America, we 
find sarmentose stems, flowers in verticils of threes, and female 
flowers and fruits with from six to ten carpels. 
XIV. SURIANA SERIES. 
Suriana (figs. 526-529) has been lately ascribed to the Quassias. 
The flowers are hermaphrodite and regular, the receptacle having an 
almost flat upper surface. The calyx is formed of five sepals, dis- 
posed in quincuncial præfloration, and the corolla of five alternate 
petals, imbricated or contorted. The stamens are ten in number, 
and superposed, five to the sepals, and five, shorter, to the petals ; 
they are free, formed of a subulate filament, and a short, two-celled, 
introrse anther, dehiscing by two longitudinal clefts, sometimes 
aborted in the oppositipetalous stamens. The gynæceum is consti- 
tuted of five oppositipetalous independent carpels, whose ovary, 
supported by a short foot, is surmounted by a style inserted towards 

1 These are: a soft thin coat, representing 
the episperm; then more internally a plate, 
almost always inconsiderable but of variable 
thickness, sometimes enduring, which has been 
regarded (perhaps without sufficient demonstra- 
tion of the fact) as a rudimentary albumen. 
2 Rercus., Ze. Fl, Germ. v. t. 160. — 
H. B. K., Nov. Gen. et Spec., vii. 168, t. 636.— 
Watt. Pl, As. Rar., t. 289.—A. Gray, in 
Mem. Amer. Acad. (1862), 383, not.—Hoox. 
¥., Man. N.-Zeul. Fl., 46, 727.—C. Gay, Fl. 
Chil., i. 491.—GREN. & Gopr., Fl. de Fr., i. 
330.—WaAtLpP., Rep., i. 528; Ann., vii. 649. 
3 Pcum., Gen., 37; Icon. (ed. Burm.), t. 
249.—L., Gen. n. 581.—ADANS., Fam. des 
PI., ii. 249.—J., Gen., 339.—LAMx., Ill. t. 
889.—Porr., Dict., vii. 522; Suppl, v. 265.— 
DC., Prodr., ii. 91.—ENDLz, Gen., n. 5953.— 
B. H., Gen., 313, n. 20.—J. G. AG., Theor. 
Syst, 169, t. 4.— H. By., in Adansonia, x. 
317. 
