190 droseracEjE. 



the lobes of the ovary, short, erect or connivent, fimbriately 

 many-cleft. Ovules indefinite, anatropous, erect, sessile on 

 and uniformly covering the nearly flat basilar placenta which 

 occupies the whole bottom of the cell. 



Capsule membranaceous, utricular, broadly ovoid, ruptur- 

 ing irregularly, or more or less distinctly five-valved, soon 

 decaying or falling away, all but the disk-like base, which 

 is thickened and persistent, forming a kind of border around 

 the flat and circular basilar placenta. Seeds indefinite, ob- 

 ovoid, smooth and shining (black), erect, uniformly covering 

 the placenta or whole bottom of the capsule ; their base 

 immersed in the fleshy scrobiculae of the placenta ; the crus- 

 taceous testa conformed to the nucleus ; the raphe salient : 

 inner integument fleshy. Embryo minute, occupying the 

 base of the fleshy albumen, conical ; the short radicle infe- 

 rior : cotyledons very thick. 



Herb acaulescent, very smooth, with fibrous roots, and a 

 rosulate cluster of spreading yellowish-green leaves, which 

 consist of a spatulate-obovate foliaceous portion (the dilated 

 petiole) traversed by a strong midrib, and bearing at its apex 

 an orbicular herbaceo-coriaceous lamina which is emarginate 

 at both ends, fringed with a row of strong spinulose bristles 

 round the margin, traversed by the strong midrib, the two 

 sides conduplicate and the whole incurved on the petiole in 

 vernation ; the upper surface dotted with minute reddish 

 glands, and bearing two or three slender bristles on each side 

 of the midrib, in which the sensitiveness of the leaf chiefly 

 resides ; but which at length fall away from the old leaves. 

 The lobes or sides of the lamina are infolded at night, in re- 

 pose, but spread open in the day ; when if the midrib, or 

 especially the bristles of the upper surface, be roughly touch- 

 ed, or an insect alights there, the sides suddenly close with 

 considerable force and imprison the intruder, the marginal 

 fringes interlacing, like the fingers of the two hands clasped 

 together, or like the teeth of a steel trap. After contraction 

 the trap remains closed for a short time and then slowly 

 expands, ready to close again if newly irritated. But if it 

 be caused to make repeated efforts at short intervals, its 



