294 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Fig. 270. Long. sect. 

 of flower (-1). 



Fig. 271. Long, 

 sect, of fruit. 



and Gassipourece have been given. The flowers are regular, with a 

 receptacle in the form of a shallow cup, bearing on its margin five 

 valvate and slightly reduplicate sepals, and five alternate petals, 

 spoon-shaped at the base, with a limb divided into unequal lobes. ^ 

 The perigynous stamens are inserted on the receptacle within the 



petals ; they are formed 

 Macarisia lanceoiata. oach of a free filament 



and an introrse bilo- 

 cular anther, dehiscing 

 by two longitudinal 

 clefts, inflexed in the 

 bud. Five are super- 

 posed to the petals, and 

 five, somewhat shorter, 

 alternate ; they are 

 separated from each 

 other by an equal 

 number of tongues be- 

 longing to the disk. 

 The gyneecium, somewhat restricted at the base, is inserted at the 

 bottom of the receptacular cup, but entirely free. ' It is composed of 

 an ovary with five cells, ^ superposed to the petals, surmounted by a 

 style slightly capitate and stigmatiferous at the summit. In the 

 internal angle of each cell is found a placenta supporting two 

 collateral, descending, incompletely anatropous ovules, with micro- 

 pyle exterior and superior. The fruit is a loculicidal capsule finally 

 dividing above into ten pannels and setting free ten (or less) com- 

 pressed seeds, surmounted by a long vertical membranous wing, and 

 enclosing, in the centre of a fleshy albumen, an elongate embryo, 

 with oblong cotyledons and superior radicle. Macarisia consists of 

 shrubs from Madagascar. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, accom- 

 panied by interpetiolate stipules, with entire or dentelate, penni- 

 nerved limb. The flowers, in the axil of the leaves, are in compound 

 cymes, with articulate pedicels accompanied by two lateral bracteoles. 

 Two species ^ are known. 



Gassipourea (fig. 272-274) comprises plants from tropical America, 

 the flower of which is nearly the samek-in construction as that of 



1 Imbricate tetween them. 



2 Somewhat incomplete above the OTules. 



' H. Bn. loc. cit. 20. — Walp. Ann. vii. 



952 



