UMBELLIFEE^. 169 



ramified clusters of cymes, with articulate pedicels. The calyx is 

 gamosepalous, 4-5-dentate ; the petals are triangular and valvate ; 

 and the unilocular and uniovulate ovary is surmounted by a thick 

 style with umbilical summit and surrounded at the base by a large 

 epigynous 10-lobed disk. The fruit is an elongate drupe the woody 

 putamen of which has on one side an exterior furrow corresponding 

 to a sort of vertical incomplete false partition, to which is applied 

 the corresponding margin of the seed. On this side the albumen 

 has a deep furrow and lodges, above, a small embryo with foliaceous 

 cotyledons, but it is not ruminate like that oi Arthrophyllum. 



Pler'andra (fig. 221, 222) is exceptional in this family on another 

 ground : the andrcecium is not isostemonous. It has a superior 

 calyx, more or less developed, 



and five or more triangular and purandra {Nesopanax) vUiensu. 



valvate petals, more or less ad- 

 herent, with a number of stamens 

 many times that of the petals. 

 In Plerandra proper the number 

 of these stamens is indefinite 

 and they are pluriseriate. The 

 leaves are compound-digitate, 

 and the ovary has 12 to 15 cells, 

 surmounted by a stumpy and 

 truncate style with little-pro- 

 nounced StigmatiferOUS lobes. Fig. 221. Flower ©. 



In Tetraplasandr.a, which we can 



make only a section of the genus, the stamens are indefinite in 

 number, simple or sometimes bifurcate ; the ovary is 6-1 0-celled, 

 with the styles united in a dentelate conical mass, and the leaves are 

 compound-pinnate. In those named Balceria, with digitate leaves, 

 we find some fifteen stamens, an ovary of only five cells and a style 

 very flat with five indistinct lobes ; in Triplasandra, from ten to 

 eighteen stamens, five or six ovarian cells with as many petals, and 

 compound-pinnate leaves; in Tuhidanthus, digitate leaves, five very 

 adherent petals and a very great number of pluriseriate stamens and 

 ovarian cells, with very small stigmatiferous lobes. 



In P. vitiensis, of which a genus Nesopanax has been made, not 

 only are the stamens very numerous, but they are evidently disposed 

 in five alternipetalous groups. P. Vieillardi, with us type of a 



