330 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



the corolla is hairy within and the style branches are more slender, 

 the partial inflorescences are spread along the- entire length of an 

 elongate branch in the axil of bracts which take the place of leaves. 



Neurocalyx and Argostemma have nearly the same organization. 

 The corolla is rotate and valvate with four or five very deep divisions ; 

 and the coriaceous bilocular capsule opens more or less irregularly to 

 release numerous small reticulate or foveolate seeds with fleshy 

 albumen and ovoid embryo. The flowers externally resemble those 

 of certain Solanacece or Jrdisiece. In Neurocalyx, annuals inhabiting 

 India, especially Ceylon and Borneo, the calyx is dilated to five large 

 membranous veined lobes, and the introrse anthers unite at the 

 margins in a cone through which passes the style, the stigmatiferous 

 extremity of which is enlarged to a small head. In Argostemma, from 

 India, the Indian Archipelago and Guinea, the stem is also herbaceous, 

 often very low, sometimes bearing only one or two pairs of leaves. 

 These, in each pair, are equal or unequal. The flowers are in false 

 umbels, at the end of the axes or oftener in the axils of the leaves. 

 The stamens are also contiguous or united in a cone around the style, 

 entire or capitate, by the bilocular anthers, which open sometimes by 

 clefts, sometiiiies by one or two pores at the top of a terminal beak. 

 The fruit is a capsule or sort of pyxis. 



Virecta (fig. 322, .323) and Otomeria belong to a small group of 

 African plants in which the divisions of the calyx are unequal, and 

 the branches of the style entirely covered with papillae. In the 

 former the corolla has four to seven valvate lobes. The throat is 

 glabrous whilst it is hairy in those forming the genus Pentas. The 

 true Virecta has simple or bilobed stipules on each side whilst those 

 of Pentas are divided into setiform strips. In the two ovarian cells 

 is a thick placenta, inserted in the partition by a narrow point, sessile 

 or stipitate and multiovulate. The fruit is capsular and locuHcidal, 

 one only of the valves being persistent in the true Virecta, both in 

 Pentas. In all, the flowers are in compound cymes resembling 

 umbels or corymbs. Otomeria, a near neighbour of the preceding 

 genus, has a valvate-indupKcate corolla, and a septicidal fruit, the 

 two cocci of which open internally, surmounted, one by three, the 

 other by the two remaining divisions of the calyx, the divisions being 

 usually unequal. 



The two abnormal genera Carlemannia and Sihiantlius, both from 

 Eastern India, have 4, 5-merous flowers in cymes similar to those of 



