22 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
free’ petals, much longer than those teeth, and valvate in the bud.’ 
The androceum consists of ten stamens, the five superposed to the 
teeth of the calyx larger than those alternating with them. Each 
has a free exserted filament? and an introrse two-celled anther, which 
Adenanthera pavonina, 
Fie. 16. 
Flower. 
Diagram. 
Fia. 17. 
Longitudinal section of flower. 
dehisces longitudinally,‘ and is surmounted by a prolongation of the 
connective, forming a little caducous glandular ball. The gynzceum, 
inserted in the very bottom of the receptacle, consists of a single 
Adenanthera 
pavonina. 
Fic. 19. 
Longitadinal 
section of seed. 
rated the seeds (fig. 15). 
carpel superposed to one of the sepals. Its ovary, 
subsessile free and one-celled, tapers above into a 
slender style, scarcely dilated at the stigmatiferous 
apex. Inside the cell of the ovary and opposite to one 
of the petals’ is a longitudinal parietal placenta, 
whose two vertical lips bear each a variable number 
of ovules in a row.’ They are descending and anatro- 
pous, with the micropyles upwards and outwards. 
The fruit is a narrow elongated pod, straight or curved. 
The pericarp opens lengthwise into two valves which 
usually curl back, their inner faces presenting the ru- 
dimentary false dissepiment which had hitherto sepa. 
These are thick and sublenticular, 
containing in their coats a nearly horny albumen surrounding a 
1 Their edges may sometimes stick together 
for a variable distance. 
2 Or slightly imbricate near the apex. 
3 The insertion of the filament is peculiar, as 
will be scen on referring to fig. 17. The corolla 
and androceum rise in fact from the rim of a 
little obconical common tube, inserted below, and 
external to the foot of the ovary; and at the 
same point comes off the base of the calyx, seated 
evidently much lower down than the point where 
the stamens and petals separate, this peculiar 
insertion of the floral verticils is yet more marked 
in certain other Mimosea. 
* The pollen consists of a large number of free 
grains, as is the case in all Adenantheree in 
which this point has been studied. 
5 Called the vevillary petal. 
® There are five or six in each row in 4, 
pavonina L. (Spec., 550;—Jacg,, Collect., iv. 
212, t. 23 ;—DC., Prodr., n. 1). 
