122 NATVBAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



sexes, often with tlie female flower at the apex. The fruit is cap- 

 sular and the seed exarillate. The surface of the male receptacle 

 thickens between the insertion of the stamens into a glandular layer. 

 Maiea, belonging entirely to the hottest regions of America, has 

 almost the flowers of a 2Vewia, a short calyx with divisions slightly 

 imbricated or valvate, early ceasing to touch each other. The 

 stamens, iadeflnite in number, are inserted on a conical or hemi- 

 spherical receptacle. The female calyx is imbricated and the seeds 

 have a micropylar aril. Conceveiba, almost entirely American, one 

 species however inhabiting tropical "Western Africa, has apetalous 

 flowers with or without disk, a male valvate calyx, numerous 

 stamens, extrorse or introrse anthers, and in the female flower from 

 five to ten imbricated sepals furnished at the base like the bracts 

 which precede them, with large marginal and dorsal glands. Gavar- 

 retia, a tree from North Brazil whose male flower is not known, has 

 female flowers with dicarpellary gynseoeum surrounded by a sacci- 

 form calyx, with entire or slightly dentate superior opening. 

 Macaranffa, belonging to the warm regions of the Old "World, is 

 also apetalous, with an indefinite number of stamens, the prsefloration 

 of the male calyx being valvate and the female imbricate ; but the 

 anthers are three or four-celled with subpeltate insertion on the summit 

 of the filament. The gynseceum sometimes with from three to six 

 cells, oftener two in the species of which the genus Mappa has been 

 made and only one with excentric insertion of the style in the true 

 Macarangas. The leaves of these plants, often palminerved or pel- 

 tate at the base, are, like most of the young organs, covered with 

 waxy or resinous grains of a yellowish colour. 



Di/sopsis, a small Chilian herb, with the habit of some climbing 

 Cotylioles, was formerly considered by us the type of a distinct series, 

 because its small monoecious trimerous flowers have generally a 

 diplostemonous androceum. The six stamens are disposed in two 

 verticils. They have introrse anthers, the three smallest being 

 sometimes wanting. The female flower has an ovary with three cells, 

 superposed to the sepals, is supported by a capillary peduncle, finally 

 much elongated. The Mercury s (fig. 177-184), plants from all 

 warm and temperate climates of the Old World, much resemble 

 Bysopsis, but their flower is more complicated. The stamens are 

 almost always indefinite in number, with cells more or less inde- 



