THE CACTUS TRIBE. 49 



the flower (^fi(j. 4. (i.y, it contains a great number of 

 youno- seeds, attached to the lining of the cavity, in 

 eight rows, or placenta?, each hanging from the point 

 of a long slender thread {fig. 5.). The style rises 

 like a graceful column {fig. 4. d.), from the top of the 

 ovary, and after reaching a little beyond the limb of 

 the anthers, divides into eight, short, narrow, fi'ingcd 

 arms, formino- a beautiful star of eioht rays. After a 

 few days, or even hours, all this gorgeous panoply fades 

 away, the stamens wither, the starry stigma closes its 

 rays, and the style, no longer able to support it, curves 

 downwards beneath its weight ; the floral leaves droop, 

 their colours become deadened, their firmness and elas- 

 ticity are replaced by a soft and slimy ooze, and quickly 

 afterwards the whole of this once lovely apparatus is 

 thrown off by the ovary, which enlarges, becomes pulpy, 

 acquires a new colour, matures its small brown seeds, 

 and finally becomes a fruit so similar to that of a 

 Gooseberry, that for a Ion"- time the latter and the 

 Cactus were thought to be related. Its seeds contain 

 an embryo {fig. 6. & 70 coiled up in the shell, which 

 accurately fits it, and having a long slender radicle, 

 with two distinct cotyledons. This kind of structure, 

 however, is not universal in the Cactus Tribe. It 

 sometimes happens that the embryo is straight, and 

 almost destitute of cotyledons, their presence being 

 only indicated by a little notch in the end of the 

 embryo {fig. 10. 11.). This unusual circumstance is 

 interesting, as shewing that the habit of growing 

 without leaves is not confined to the stem, but is to be 

 met with, in some species, even in the embryo itself. 



VOL. II. E 



