122 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 
posterior pair have sterile acuminate anthers. But the pluriovulate 
ovary is surmounted by a petaloid style, which is dilated above it 
into a sort of irregular sac or hood,’ whose median lobe, longer than 
Cassia (Cathartocarpus) Fistula. 
Fig. 104, 
Fruit (2). 
the lateral ones, ends in a little stigmatic surface. 
A 
ETD 
‘ 
WTO TPE AOUL 
cll 
Fig. 105. 
Longitudinal section of fruit. 
The flattened 
oblong-linear bivalve pod contains numerous seeds, whose long 
funicles are dilated into arils,and which are filled by horny albumen, sur- 
rounding an embryo with a straight radicle and flattened cotyledons. 
1 Like the hood formed by the posterior sepal 
in the Aconites. At first the ovary of Petalo- 
styles is surmounted by a slender capitate style, 
whose apex then gradually bends down towards 
the placenta, while its two edges increase 
in breadth all the way up, the membranous 
gutter now formed by the style having its con- 
cavity towards the centre of the flower, so that 
later on the back of the hood is anterior. As 
Petalostyles differs in no other respect from 
Cassia, it might, perhaps, be not amiss to make 
it a mere section of the genus. 
