HYPEBICACEM. 387 



■witli five imbricate sepals, five alternate petals, twisted, five bundles 

 of oppositipetalous stamens with introrse anthers,' and an ovary with 

 five alternipetalous cells, complete or incomplete and multiovulate, 

 surmounted by an equal number of stylary branches, capitate and 

 stigmatiferous at the summit. The fruit is a septifragal capsule, the 

 five valves of which have at the centre five polyspermous placentary 

 plates. The seeds enclose under their multiple coats,^ a fleshy and 

 straight embryo, without albumen. These plants are sub-shrubby 

 or herbaceous. Their leaves ^re opposite, without stipules, charged 

 with punctiform and pellucid reservoirs filled with odorous essence. 

 Their flowers are in cymes at the top of the branches. 



With the same organs of vegetation, certain other St. John's Worts, 

 of which the genus Androscemum ^ has been made, have the same 



Hypericum {Triadenia) JEgyptiacwm. 



Fig. 351. Flower. Fig. 352. Long. sect, of flower. 



flower, except that their gynsecium is trimerous, the two lateral car- 

 pels being absent. The fruit may be a little fleshy at the time of 

 maturity ; then however it opens in three valves like a capsule^ 



In Hypericum proper,* the fruit is capsular, and the gynsecium is 

 reduced to three carpels ; but so are also the bundles of stamens ; so 

 that there is only one anterior, oppositipetalous, and two lateral, 

 superposed to sepals 4 and 5.* 



Now, with the three carpels and three staminal bundles of the true 

 Hypericum^ let the flower have three glands alternating with the 

 bundles of stamens and analogous to those of Vismia, and we shall 



' The pollen is ellipsoid, ae in Mt/pericum nous, 

 generally, with, tliree folds, " external membrane 'All. Fl. Fedem. n. 1440. — Spach, Suit a 

 formed of two bands pointed at the two ends Suffon, \. 414 ; Ann. Sc. Nat. loc. eit. 360. — 

 ■which cross {S. perforatum, H. qwadrangulare). Payer, Organog. 3, t. 1 ; Farm. Nat. 78. 

 The folds correspond to the angles of a tetrahe- * Sypericum Spach, Suit, a Buffon, v. 382: 

 dron (ff. perforatum) ; ovoid; three folds , in Ann. Sc. Nat. loc. eit. 356, 

 water, a sphere having three bands with three ' " This special.position of the staminal bun- 

 papillae (-ff. hiroinum)." dies clearly indicates that the reduction to three 



2 The exterior is often loose reticulate ; the arises not by abortion but by the union of four 



next hard, coloured, covering a third membra- bundles two and two." (Payer.) 



25—3 



