226 KRAMERIACE^. 



with a small and rounded sometimes nearly abortive lamina, 

 distinct, or commonly with their long claws united at the 

 base or for nearly their whole length ; the two anterior 

 petals lateral, remote, short and sessile, oblique, rounded or 

 flabelliform, fleshy. Stamens 4 (or by abortion fewer), oc- 

 cupying the posterior side of the flower, hypogynous ; the 

 FILAMENTS flcshy, curvcd, sometimes free and distinct, or 

 nearly so, then obviously alternate with the petals, but the 

 place of the anterior one vacant (or rarely, according to 

 Engelmann. occupied by a sterile filament), sometimes the 

 two middle or superior ones united, and the two lateral 

 (which are often rather longer) distinct, sometimes all equal- 

 ly or unequally mohadelphous, often adnate to the claws of 

 the three posterior petals : anthers fixed by their base, erect, 

 two-celled, somewhat opening at the (occasionally tubular- 

 ' produced) apex by a double or single pore. Pollen of sim- 

 ple globose grains. Disk none. Pistil single and simple, 

 sessile : ovary ovoid or globular, gibbous, silky-hirsute, one- 

 celled, with a single placental line occupying the side next 

 the axis of inflorescence and often projecting a little into the 

 cell : style obliquely terminal, subulate or filiform : stigma 

 terminal, simple. Ovules 2, collateral, pendulous from near 

 the summit of the cell, anatropous. 



Fruit woody-coriaceous 'or crustaceous, indehiscent, glo- 

 bose, echinate with strong prickles (which are either glochi- 

 date at the apex, as in K. cytisoides, or retrorsely scabrous), 

 one-celled by the abortion of one ovule, one-seeded. Seed 

 pendulous, globular, conformed to the cell, not at all carun- 

 culate or appendaged ; the testa smooth and membrana- 

 ceous ; the small and naked hilum connected by a narrow 

 raphe with a very broad chalaza. Albumen none. Embryo 

 conformed to the seed, which it fills, straight : cotyledons 

 thick and fleshy, plano-convex, strongly auriculate-produced 

 at the base : radicle superior, near the hilum, conical, en- 

 tirely concealed by the extended base of the cotyledons : 

 PLUMULE manifest. 



SuFFRUTicosE plauts, silky-villous, with numerous difluse 

 or decumbent stems arising from thickened fleshy roots ; the 



