328 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



Coccocypselum and Synaptantha are connected with Oldenlandia by- 

 other sections. The former, whose flower is tetramerous, having a 

 valvate corolla and two ovarian cells, with a globular placenta 

 supported by a foot attached to the base or near the middle of the 

 partition, is an American Hedyatis the pericarp of which becomes 

 more or less fleshy, although its two halves often separate at maturity. 

 The latter is rather an Australian Hedyotis in which the apical 

 independence of the ovary or of the fruit is more marked than in 

 Leptoseela, Lucya, Houstonia, &c. ; so that only the lower half of the 

 gynsecium is encased in the receptacular capsule, the upper half 

 being free. The fruit is capsular or loculicidal. Coccocypselum in 

 its habit and foliage resembles some hairy and creeping Menthas, and 

 Stjnaptantha has in habit been compared to certain humble Ganjq- 

 phyllacece such as Sagina. 



By its half free gynsecium, Synaptantlia forms a link between 

 Oldenlandia and a genus here quite abnormal, Mitreola} In the 



latter the fruit is sensibly free 

 SuHapimtha HUmcea. a,nd supenor. But in the flower 



the receptacle is slightly concave 

 and the ovary is semi-inferior, 

 that is " adherent " in its lower 

 part. Moreover the two ovarian 

 cells enclose the pluriovulate 

 placenta of Oldenlandia; the' 

 corolla is gamopetalous, penta- 

 merous and valvate, and the 

 fruit is a capsule, compressed perpendicular to the partition, obtri- 

 angular, truncate or deeply bilobed at the summit. They are annual 

 or perennial herbs of the warm and temperate regions of Asia, 

 AustraUa and America, with opposite leaves connected by small 

 stipules ; axillary and terminal flowers disposed unilaterally on the 

 slender axes of a dichotomous cyme, similar to that in the sections 

 Leptoseela, HeUstocarpa, &c., of Oldenlandia. What Gcertnera is to 



Fig. 318. Long. sect, of flower (f). 



' Another genus which plays hero the same 

 intermediate part and which approaches very- 

 near to those under consideration, is Polt/prcmum 

 (fig. 319, 320), often referred to the Loffaiiiacc(e, 

 and appears to us near Synnptantha. Its flowers, 

 4, 5-merous, have an ovary almost entirely 

 free, aa also itJ capsular, subdid ymous, loculi- 



cidal fruit. But its corolla is more or less 

 imbricate, . which renders it abnormal in this 

 series. It is an American herb, whose habit 

 and foliage recall those qf Synapttuitha, whose 

 petioles-are dilated and- connate at the base, 

 and flowers subsessile in the dichotomies of a 

 foliate cyme. 



