270 



NATJTBAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Phyllis Nobla. 



sponding to the margins of the carpels. The cocci, separated" from 

 •each other, remain long suspended from these bifurcate branches. 

 Carpococe is distinguished from all the preceding types by the unsym- 

 metrical character of its fruit which, by abortion, has only one fertile 

 .cell containing one erect seed, and by the unequal divisions of the 

 .calyx which persist above the fruit. The corolla, with a slender 

 tube, has five valvate divisions and varies as to form in the male 

 flowers and in those in which the gynascium is well developed ; the 

 divisions also bear a superior dorsal horn. The stamens are inserted 



at the base of the corolla ; 

 the style is simple and the 

 other characters of these 

 herbs or undershrubs of the 

 Cape are nearly those of 

 Anthospermum. Otiophora, 

 herbs and undershrubs of 

 Madagascar, also often has 

 one cell aborted in the fruit 

 with thin and dry pericarp, 

 and is also crowned with 

 unequal sepals one or two 

 of which develope into a 

 foliaceous layer. The her- 

 maphrodite flowers are soli- 

 tary or geminate at the level 

 of each leaf or of the bracts 

 which replace them at the 

 top of the branches, in this 

 case resembUng spikes. The 

 style is long, slender and 

 bifid, and the stamens are inserted in the throat of the corolla." 

 Plocama, branched shrubs of the Canaries, has elongate, opposite 

 or verticillate leaves, polygamous fiowers, axillary or terminal, soli- 

 tary or in cymes, and the corolla of Anthospermum with 4-7 valvate 

 lobes; the same number of stamens, inserted in the throat, and a 

 2-4 celled ovary, surmounted by a tolerably thick style, the summit 

 of which is divided into as many very small obtuse teeth. The fleshy 

 fruit encloses 2-4 erect seeds immersed, Hke the ovules, in a glutinous 



Fig. 239. Floriferous branch (J). 



