433 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



ovary, which has most frequently but one cell and a single placenta, 

 surmounted by an eccentric style, with a stigmatiferous summit not 

 enlarged. All the other characters of the flower are those of Lythrum. 

 Nescea (fig. 394, 395) is distinguished from the Salicarias by cha- 

 racters of very secondary scientific importance. The receptacle, how- 

 ever, is not the same, for, with the calyx which surmounts it, it 

 represents a carapanulate sac, traversed by salient nervures to the 



Nestea salicifolia. 



Fig 394. Flower. Fig. 395. Long. sect, of flower. 



number ef twelve or fourteen. The sepals, variable in number (4-8), 

 are valvate, and alternate with as many exterior tongues, analogous 

 to those of Lythrum. The petals, equal and sessile or unguiculate, 

 according to the species, are the same in number, and the stamens 

 double in number on two verticils. The ovary, as also the capsular 

 fruit, has from three to six multiovulate cells, and the valves of the 

 latter, at maturity, separate, with the partitions, from the placentae 

 charged with seeds. Nescea comprises African and American herba- 

 ceous shrubby or subshrubby plants; the leaves are opposite or 

 verticillate, and the flowers are in cymes varying in the three sec- 

 tions (Eunescea, Meimia, Decodon) admitted in the genus. 



Ginora is somewhat analogous to Nescea, and the flowers are 5-6- 

 merous ; but the sepals inserted at the margin of a turbinate recep- 

 tacle, externally smooth, have no alternate accet 3ory tongues ; there 

 are from twelve to twenty-four stamens, with curved anthers, an 

 ovary with four multiovulate cells and a loculicidal four-valved cap- 

 sule. Only one species is known, from Cuba. Dodecas, a shrub from 

 the sea-shores of tropical America, has nearly the flowers of Ginoriq,, 

 tetramerous, with no accessory tongues or scarcely visible outside 

 the sepals, from eight to ten stamens, with oblong, finally erect 

 anthers, and four cells in the ovary. The capsular fruit is finally 



