82 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
Pterolobium has nearly regular flowers, whose receptacle forms a 
shallow cupule lined by a glandular disk, and bearing on its rim five 
imbricate sepals, five imbricate petals like those of Cesalpinia, and 
ten free stamens superposed to the perianth-leaves, each pos- 
sessing an introrse two-celled anther dehiscing longitudinally. The 
ovary, inserted nearly in the centre of the receptacle, contains one 
or two descending ovules, with the micropyles upwards and out- 
wards ; it is surmounted by a style whose stigmatic apex is truncate, 
or hollow and funnel-shaped. The fruit is an indehiscent samara, 
the upper part being prolonged into an oblique wing, just like the 
“key” of a Maple. On the same side as the insertion of this wing 
is attached the seed, suspended by a slender funicle, and containing 
within its coats a fleshy exalbuminous embryo or a straight superior 
radicle. Pterolobium consists of trees or climbing shrubs. Their 
leaves are bipinnate with numerous small leaflets. The flowers are 
grouped in simple or ramified racemes, each axillary to a caducous 
bract. The three known species’ of this genus inhabit tropical Asia, 
Africa, and Australia. 
The flowers of Barklya’® are very like those of Pterolobium, and 
possess the same shallow cupuliform receptacle lined with glandular 
tissue. The gamosepalous calyx has five short slightly imbricated 
lobes. ‘The corolla consists of as many nearly equal petals, with 
the vexillary petal usually overlapped on both sides in preefloration.‘ 
The stamens are free perigynous and arranged in two whorls, as in 
Pterolobium ; each has a glabrous filament and an introrse sagittate 
two-celled anther of longitudinal dehiscence. The gyneceum is 
stipitate, with the ovary ending in a little stigmatiferous terminal 
point. The ovules are few in number,’ descending ; the micropyles 
look upwards and outwards. The fruit is a stipitate oblong-lanceo- 
1R. Br. in App. Salt. Abyss., 64.—W. & 
ARN., Prodr., i. 283.—EnDL., Gen., n. 6769,— 
B. H., Gen., 567, n. 311.—Kantuffa Bruce, 
Voy., trad. CastER., v. 64, t. 14.—Reichardia 
Roru., Nov. Gen. et Spec., 210 (part.).— 
Quartinia A. Ricu., in Ann, Se. Nat., sér. 2, 
xiv. 259; xv. 179. 
2 Wicut, Jcon., te 196.—Miq., Fl. Ind.- 
Bat., i. 106.—Bentu., Fl. Austr., ii. 279.— 
Outv., Fl. Trop. Afr., ii. 264.—Watp., Rep., i. 
811; Avn., 11.448; iv. 592,—“ ScHWEINFURTH 
(Fl. Aithiop., 5, 255), indicates a second species as 
oceurring in Abyssinia and Senaar. No name or 
description is given” (OLIv., loc. cit.). 
3 P. Mortt., in Journ. Linn. Soe., iii. 158 ; 
Fragm. Phyt. Austr, i. t. 3—Bryvu., Fl. 
Austr., ii. 275.—B. H., Gen., 559, u. 289. 
4 Perhaps the estivation is not constant, and 
hence it is, no doubt, that Brntuam and Hoorer 
have placed Barklya among Papilionacee-So- 
phoree ; but we do not leave it there, because 
on dissecting a very large number of flower buds, 
we have never seen the petal to which the 
placenta is superposed overlapping the two lateral 
petals on both sides, as is normally the case in 
Papilionacee. 
5 There are usually two or three, more rarely 
only one. 
