384 pentandria monogynia. Buttnera. 



ches, villous, glaucous, fascicled, axillary, erect, four or five inches 

 long, branchy ; with round, thickish, and fleshy peduncles, and linear- 

 ensiforru, caducous bractes. Flowers small, yellowish and villous 

 without; pink-coloured within, collected in small umbellets, which 

 are supported hy an involucrum of many spreading bractes. Pedi- 

 cels short, fleshy. — Calyx divided to the base into five lanceolate, 

 acute segments ; its bottom dark purple ; {estivation valvate. — Pe- 

 tals fleshy, alternating with the laciniaa of the calyx and short- 

 er than they, cuneate, margins with a recurved tooth, tapering 

 downwards into a purple claw, incurved, and uniting at the bifid apex 

 so as to form a dome over the ovaiy and nectary; from a little below 

 the apex of each issues a filiform, pubescent process, parallel to, but 

 not conniving with those of the others, considerably elevated above the 

 calyx. Nectary shorter than the dome of the corolla, diaphanous, 

 fleshy; consisting of five obior.g lobes united below by means of the 

 alternating short filaments, the apices of which only are free. Anthers 

 twin. — Ovary globular, scabrous, papillose ; style very short; stigma 

 minutely lobed, elevated to the mouth of the nectary. — Capsule large, 

 globular, peduncled, nodding, measuih'g full two inches in diameter, 

 flattish at the base, retuseat the vertex, withoutany remaining vestige 

 of the flower, pubescent, of a dirty grey colour, echinate and rough 

 with numerous short, stout, ratherdistant, conical, broad, sharp, straight 

 prickles, which are about three lines long ; five-celled, five-seeded, 

 ten-valved, separating at length along the woody axis, which is cylin- 

 dric and thick as far as the middle, and filiform from thence upwards, 

 into five triangular, distinct, smaller capsules, which are marked on 

 their flat broad sides with a few bifurcate radiating veins ; their in- 

 ner margin rectilinear ; bursting with an audible noise from its cen- 

 tre upwards and backwards to below the middle of the convex spi- 

 nous back into two gaping valves. The cells are large, lined with 

 a silvery, shining, tough membrane and containing a limpid vis- 

 cid fluid, which is gradually absorbed, until at length, when the seeds 

 are perfectly ripe, it entirely disappears, The five dessepiments con- 

 sist of the contiguous, fiat sides of the chambers of the capsule. 



