20 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Meriania {Davya) 

 Juscescens, 



Heterotrichum, another section of the same genus, has larger flowers,, 

 in terminal cymose clusters, and 6-8-merous, with an adherent 

 ovary, flat or depressed at the summit, and 6-12-celled. The leaves 

 also are nearly those of Clidemia and Sagrcea. 



Henriettea is very near the preceding genera ; it has lateral flowers, 

 solitary or in glomerules, with ovary completely adherent to the 

 receptacle covered externally with hairs, and anthers inflexed or 

 elongate or shorter in the species constituting the genus Henriettella. 

 All are from tropical America. 



Osscea has nearly the flower of Henriettea. The 4-5-merous 

 flowers are in clusters of biparous or uniparous cymes, more rarely 

 in axillary glomerules, and the petals approach closely in a cone. 

 In some, forming the genus Octopleura, the receptacle has "externally 

 eight or ten vertical ribs. These are also tropical American plants. 

 Mecranium is from the Antilles, and may be generically distinguished 

 from the preceding types because the 4-6-merous 

 flowers have short and glabrous sepals, obtuse petals, 

 stamens with connective prolonged below the anther, 

 articulate with the top of the filament, and are in 

 ramified clusters of cymes and lateral.' 



A tribe {Merianiece) has received its name irom 

 Meriania (fig. 28), which has pentamerous flowers, 

 with a .tubular receptacle, at the bottom of which is 

 the ovary, free or nearly so, and the margin of 

 which bears five free or united sepals, five longer, 

 contorted petals, and ten nearly equal stamens, the 

 anther, sessile at the top of the filament, bearing 

 posteriorly at its base, an entire appendage, often 

 calcariform, or enlarged and lobed at the summit. 

 The ovary has from three to five multiovulate cells, 

 and the capsular fruit encloses seeds in the form of an elongate 

 pyramid. They are trees of tropical America, with large handsome 

 terminal flowers, solitary or in compound clusters of cymes. From 

 them cannot be separated generically Adelobotrys, climbing shrubs 

 which have nearly the same flower with a receptacle often rather 

 more constricted at the throat, and seeds with an envelope prolonged 



Fig. 28. Stamen. 



1 They at the same time connect, by means floral organization, this series with that of 

 ©f Zoret/a, which they much resemble in their Blakea. 



