EUPHORBIAOE^. 125 



four stamens, or eight in two ranks, or a larger number, indefinite. 

 Tke filaments are free or united below in a ring ; the anthers are 

 introrse or extrorse, without any peculiar shape, and the gynse- 

 ceum di- or trimerous, surrounded or not by a hypogynous disk, is 



Alealypha phleoides. 



Fig. 188. Female flower. Fig. 187. Male flower (>f). Fig. 189. Long. sect, of Female flower. 



surmounted by a style with entire or bifid branches. Maret/a, a 

 small tree from tropical Western Africa, is nearly allied to the pre- 

 ceding genus, whose perianth it has. The stamens, indefinite in 

 number, are inserted upon a glandular receptacle, the cells hanging 

 at first distinct from the connective, afterward rising. The fruits 

 are capsular and the seeds exarillate. Cephalomappa of Borneo has 

 numerous female sepals and 2-3-androus male flowers united in 

 globular eapitules. Ramelia, a small shrub from IN'ew Caledonia, 

 represents a reduced type of Cleidon and Alchornea. Its trilocular 

 ovary is surmounted by a style ihfundibuHform at the base, then 

 divided into three almost petaloid and stigmatiferous branches, 

 the male flower, with valvate calyx, only containing two or 

 three stamens which alternate with the sepals. Caryodendron, 

 a large tree fr'om the Orinoco, is distinguished by its male 

 flowers, with valvate calyx and four stamens, surrounded by a 

 perigynous disk, which spreads over the bottom of the flowers of 

 both sexes, by its pendent anther cells, and its large fruit, probably 

 indehiscent, of the sisie of a nut, with edible seeds. Platt/gyne, a 

 volubile shrub, with burning hafrs, growing in Cuba, has stamens 

 almost definite in number (from five to eight), borne upon a recep- 

 tacle, with truncate or concave apex, and a female calyx with from 

 five to seven leaves, imbricated or almost valvate, surrounding a 

 trimerous gynseceum. 



Amperea, consistiug of Australian suffrutescent plants, often with 

 spartoid branches and narrow leaves, sometimes very little developed, 



