EUSIACMM. 263 



the divisions of which, four or five, more rarely six in number, are 

 valvate in the bud. The stamens, inserted lower or higher on the 

 tube of the corolla, often even at its throat, which is bare or hairy, 

 are formed of a filament variable in length, and of a dorsifixed, 

 enclosed or exserted, bilocular, introrse anther dehiscing by two 

 longitudinal clefts. The ovary is surmounted by a style of simple 

 capitate stigmatiferous extremity, entire or divided into two short 

 obtuse branches ; and each of its two ' cells, one anterior the other 

 posterior, contains a single ascending ovule, more or less completely 

 anatropous, with micropyle exterior and inferior.^ It is inserted at 

 greater or less height on the partition separating the cells, and the 

 base of its raphe sometimes adheres to the partition to a variable 

 extent. The fruit of the true Spermacoce is dicoccous, crustaceous 

 or coriaceous, little fleshy, and the two cocci separate- from each 

 other at maturity ; after which they open at the internal angle either 

 in their entire length or only at the top ; or one only opens, the 

 other remaining indehiscent.. Each encloses a seed whose exterior 

 coat, furrowed, often granular externally, covers an albumen more 

 or less hard. In the centre of the latter is lodged an axile embryo 

 with foliaceous cotyledons and inferior cylindrical radicle. They are 

 herbs annual, perennial or woody at the base ; leaves opposite with 

 penniform or parallel nerves, those of the same pair united by inter- 

 petiolate connate stipules, often divided into hairs at the upper 

 margin. The flowers are in glomerules or cymes with short pedicels, 

 forming false verticils in the axil of the leaves, or false capitules at 

 the ends of the branches. There the leaves may be reduced to the 

 form of bracts. The number of species is estimated at 150 inhabiting 

 all the tropical regions of both worlds and especially common in the 

 new. 



S. ampliata, from eastern tropical Africa, of Vhich a genus 

 Hypodematium ' has been made, is distinguished as a section because 

 its fruit divides circularly near the base, nearly like a pyxis, before 

 the separation of the cocci. A similar fact occurs in the American 



' Sometimes three or four. The micropylar orifice also often deviates 



^ The envelope, very short, is however more laterally, 

 distinct in some species of th.8 genus (5. <«««ior, ^ A. "Rich. Fl. Abyss, Tent. i. 348. — Hieen, 



for example) than in most of the Suiieie. Fl. Trap. Afr. iii. 241. 



