NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



bears five alternipetalous glands. The gynseceum is free,; superior,, 

 formed of an ovary witli five cells, superposed to tlie petals, sur- 

 mounted by a style wbicli above separates into five brandies stig-, 

 matiferous within. In the internal angle of each, cell there is a 

 longitudinal placenta supporting two ovules. These are collateral 



Geraniwn sanguineum. 



Fig. 8. Flower. 



10. Long. sect, of flowers (^). 



Fig. 11. Fruit (a). 



or almost superposed, descendent, anatropous with micropyle directed 

 outwards and upwards.^ The fruit, generally accompanied at its base 

 by the persistent calyx,^ is dry, surmounted by a style, and opens 



at maturity, so that eaich of the cells 

 dehiscence from the axis of the fruit.^ 



separates by septifragal 

 The cell rises elastically 



violet, or even bluish. The pollen is in spheri- 

 cal grains, opaque ; " on three sides an elliptical 

 cavity; in this is a papilla which swells in 

 water ; external memhrane coarse or papillose" 

 (H. MoHL, in Ann. So. Nat. ser. 2, iii. 336). 

 The pollen is generally the same as in Erodium 

 Pelargonium, etc. 

 ' They have two coats. Sometimes one of 



the two ovules being displaced it becomes more 

 or less obliquely ascendent. 



2 They are generally applied to the young 

 fruit after the fall of the petals. 



' HorMEiBTEB has studied this phenomenon 

 of. dehiscence in a work where he has also 

 shown how the cells a.re prolonged above into 



