LEGUMINOS2-MIMOSEZ. 33 
same variations in the numbers of all the parts.’ But the pods, 
covered with prickles, open in a way peculiar to themselves, sepa- 
rating into four panels by as many longitudinal clefts. Of these 
panels two are lateral and are usually the narrower ; they correspond 
to the ordinary valves of a Leguminose pod. The two others, despite 
their breadth, represent the dorsal and ventral edges. This latter 
edge bears the seeds’ attached to the middle of its interior face by 
very slender funicles. This genus contains half a score known 
species, prickly herbs or undershrubs with the bipinnate leaves of 
Mimosa. Their inflorescence consists of axillary spikes, short and 
globular in Huschranckia,* elongated and cylindrical in the section 
Rhodostachys. 
Leucena' has the pentamerous flowers of a diplostemonous .Wimosa, 
possessing a gamosepalous calyx with valvate teeth, and five alternating 
free petals, not touching at all by their contracted bases and valvate 
above. The ten stamens superposed to the perianth-leaves possess 
free filaments inserted beneath the foot of the ovary, and glandular 
introrse two-celled anthers. The shortly stipitate ovary is multi- 
ovulate, and is surmounted by a style, dilated and hollow at its 
stigmatiferous apex. The pod is straight and flattened, with a rigid 
pericarp opening simply into two longitudinal valves. There are 
no complete false septa separating the rather oblique seeds. Leucena 
consists of unarmed trees and shrubs; seven or eight species are 
known,’ all from the warmer regions of America, except one alone, a 
native of the Pacific which has spread over all the warm countries 
of the globe. The leaves are alternate bipinnate ; the petioles often 
glandular. The flowers form globular pedunculate capitula, either 
connected into racemes, or in pairs, each pair on a very short rudi- 
mentary axillary branch. ach flower is axillary to a bract tapering 
at the base and dilated at the apex. 
Desmanthus’ has little flowers, formed like those of Zeucena and 
1 Their petals usually cohere to a greater ex- 4 It is only in this section that the species are 
tent, sometimes forming an infundibuliform corolla 
(usually pink). Some flowers are polygamous. 
2 They are angular, and compressed against 
one another at either end. 
3 All are American, except a single species 
common to America and the west of tropical 
Africa.—VENT., Choix de Plant., t. 28.—WALP., 
Rep., i. 883; v. 586; Ann,, i. 263; ii. 451.— 
Outv., Fl. Trop, Afr., ii. 336. 
von. II. 
not constantly pentamerous. 
5 Bentu., in Hook. Journ, iv. 416.—B. H., 
Gen., 594, u. 389. 
6 Jacq. Hort. Schendr., t. 394.—DC., 
Prodr., ii. 467, n. 192.—Watp., Rep. i. 884; 
v. 586; Ann., i. 263; iv. 616. 
7 W., Spec., iv. 1044 (part.),— GEETN., 
Fruct., ii. t. 148—K., Mimos., 115.—DC., 
Prodr., ii, 443 (sect. 2, Desmanthea, excl. 
sect. 1, 3).—ENDL., Gen. n. 6828 (part.),— 
B. H., Gen., 592, n. 386. 
D' 
