98 



TaiBB V. HELIANTHOIDE^.— SrBTKiBB AMBROSIB^. 

 XANTHirM, Linn. 



(Prom xanfJios, yellow ; the plants being formerly used by the Greeks ' 

 to dye their hair.) 

 Capitula unisexual, monCBcious ; staminate globose, in terminal 

 clusters ; pistillate 2-flowered, chiefly axillary. Male capitula with 

 few narrow involucral bracts ; florets numerous, sheathed by folded 

 hyaline palese ; corolla 5-toothed ; anthers free or nearly so, base obtuse. 

 Female capitula with an ellipsoidal or ovoid closed gamophyllous 

 aculeate involucre, 2-locellate and 2-rostrate ; corolla none ; aehenes 

 solitary in each cell of the indurated prickly enclosing involucre. 

 Coarse scabrid hoary or glabrate annuals, with alternate petiolate 

 palmately-lobed leaves. 



X. strumarinm, Linn. Noogoora Burr. Stem, branches, and 

 leaves puberulous without spines, mottled, spreading, attaining 6 or 

 8 feet in height. Leaves deltoid, 3 to 5-lobed, unequally often coarsely 

 dentate, often over 6 inches broad ; base 3-nerved, cordate, sinus wide, 

 cuneate into the petiole of 1 to 6 inches. Capitula nearly sessile, 

 clustered; fruit ellipsoidal, about f inch long, terminating in an erect 

 or somewhat curved beak. 



Order PROTEACE^. 



This order contains about 960 species in a genera of between 

 50 and 60. The most important product of the order is its timber ; 

 many of the woods are very beautiful, and some are in demand, 

 principally by coopers and cabinetmakers. 



Flowers hermaphrodite or rarely partially unisexual. Perianth 

 regular or irregular, deciduous, consisting of 4 segments valvately 

 united in the bud, the claws forming a tube cylindrical ordilated 

 towards the base, the laminae short, forming a globular ovoid or rarely 

 elongated limb ; the segments at length separating either from the 

 base upwards or revolute from the laminsB downwards, leaving a por- 

 tion of the tube entire or open on one side, the laminae sometimes 

 cohering long after the segments have separated lower down. 

 Stamens 4, opposite the perianth segments and usually inserted on 

 them, either with the filaments wholly adnate, leaving the anthers 

 sessile at the base of the laminae, or the filament shortly free below 

 the laminae ; or very rarely the stamens entirely free from theperianth. 

 Anthers various, all perfect or rarely partially abortive, most fre- 

 quently with 2 parallel cells adnate to a connect! vum continuous with the 

 filament. Hypogynous or perigynous glands or scales in many genera 4, 

 alternating with the stamens, but in some genera variously united or 

 reduced in number or wholly deficient. Ovary 1-celled, sessile or 

 stipitate, more or less excentrical, with a single terminal undivided 

 style, variously shaped at the end, with a small terminal oblique or 

 ^ lateral stigma. Ovules eitlier solitary or 2 collaterally attached or 

 slightly superposed, or several imbricate in 2 contiguous rows, either 

 pendulous and orthotropous or, more frequently, laterally attached 

 and more or less amphitropous, rarely erect and anatropous, the 

 micropyle always inferior and frequently prominent from the incom- 

 plete development of the primine. Fruit either an indehiscent nut or 

 drupe, or a more or less dehiscent coriaceous or woody folicle, very 

 rarely a completely 2-valved capsule ; either 1-celled and 1-seeded, or 



