12S GERANIACE^. 



inner face partly imbedded in excavations of the dilated base 

 of the long and beak -like central axis, from which they sep- 

 arate at maturity, and are ruptured on the inner face, remain- 

 ing attached to the base of the persistent and indurated flat- 

 tened styles ; which separate from the prolonged 5-angular 

 axis or beak from below upwards, and are circinately recurv- 

 ed, their inner face smooth or rarely a little hairy. Seed 

 by abortion solitary in each carpel, pendulous, anatropous 

 or half anatropous, the crustaceous testa usually reticulated 

 or pitted, destitute of albumen. Embryo conformed to the 

 seed : cotyledons large and foliaceous, convolutely folded 

 together so that the transverse section is like a letter S ; the 

 RADICLE short, conical, inflexed upon the cotyledons and ap- 

 plied to them near one of their margins, descending. 



Herbs, rarely suffrutescent plants, usually caulescent, 

 with tumid nodes, and opposite (or the uppermost some- 

 times alternate) stipulate leaves, which are usually rounded 

 and palmately lobed or parted, rarely ternately or pinnately 

 dissected. Peduncles terminal, or becoming alar or lateral, 

 one - two-flowered, four-bracteate at the origin of the pedi- 

 cels. Flowers purple, reddish, or white. 



Etymology. The name is derived from yepavos, a crane, from a fan- 

 cied resemblance of the prolonged axis of the fruit to the beak of that bird. 



PLATE 150. Geranium maculatum, Linn.; — a flowering branch. 



1. Diagram of a flower, with the corolla convolute in aestivation. 



2. Diagram of the calyx and corolla, with one petal exterior in sestivation. 



3. Flower enlarged, the calyx and corolla removed, showing the glands, &c. 



4. A long and a short stamen, more magnified. 



5. The pistil and receptacle, magnified. 



6. Vertical section of the base of the same, more magnified. 



7. One of the ovules detached and more magnified than those in fig. 6. 



8. The fruit with the calyx, of the natural size, the dehiscent carpels 



borne on the upwardly recurved styles. 



9. A seed, magnified. 



10. A transverse section of the same. 



11. Embryo detached and divided across the cotyledons, magnified. 



