363 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



merous flower of Paullinia and Bchmidelia, simple and opposite 

 leaves, and a capsular, coriaceous, vesicular, lobate, loculicidal fruit, 

 whose exarillate seeds contain a bent embryo with folded cotyledons. 

 Bridgesia, a shrub from the same country, has very nearly the same 

 aspect, alternate leaves, entire or trilobate, dentate or notched, the 

 same flowers and the same seeds, but the capsular fruit is trilobate, 

 almost membranous, and each of the cells, surmounted by a vertical 

 dorsal ridge, is separated at maturity from the central columella. 



In Urvillea and Serjania, consisting of climbing shrubs from tro- 

 pical America, are again found the sarmentose, volubile stems oiPaul- 

 linea, with the alternate leaves and inflorescence usually provided 

 with two tendrils at the base, the irregular flowers with flve sepals 

 (two of which may be united to a variable height), four petals and 

 the seeds with a but slightly developed aril ; but the fruit is formed 

 of three samaras separated from the central columella, like the lobes 

 of that of Bridgesia. In the Urvilleas, plants 

 cardmpermummucacahum. ^-^j^ trifoliate Icavos, the scminiferous cavity 

 occupies the middle of the height of the 

 samaras, whilst in Serjania whose leaves are 

 also frequently pinnate the seed is at the 

 top of the samara, the whole of whose inferior 

 portion is prolonged in a wing resembling that 

 of the Maple turned upside down. The Tou- 

 Kg. 38i. Fruit Ucitts, trees, not climbing, from central tropical 



America, with alternate and imparipinnate 

 leaves, have the irregular flower of Serjania and Urvillea, with a fruit 

 divided into three samaroid capsules, each opening in halves after 

 being detached from the columella ; the seminiferous cavity occupies 

 the upper part. It is inferior, on the contrary, in Pseudatalaya, an 

 Australian genus which, having the irregular flower, with four 

 petals, of Pancovia, and the fruit of Atalaya and Thouinia (that is to 

 say, the fruit of a Maple), of which it represents here the irregular form. 

 The Cardiospermums^ frutescent or suffrutescent plants from all tro- 

 pical regions, one species of which is frequently cultivated by us as 

 an annual, have decomposite leaves, and an inflorescence with two 

 tendrils like most of the Serjanias and Urvilleas, as well as the irre- 

 gular flower, but the fruit (fig. 384) is a membranous or loculicidal 

 capsule with three inflated and vesiculate cells. 



