PROTEACE Zi. 385 
tube, while above their union forms a sort of ball. Later on the 
four leaves separate, either all the way down or only for a variable 
extent.' The androceum consists of four stamens superposed to the 
perianth-leaves, and inserted in a sort of spoon-shaped cavity at the 
top of each. Hach stamen is formed of an extremely short filament, 
and a basifixed introrse two-celled anther of longitudinal dehiscence. 
The gyneceum is free; it is composed of a one-celled ovary, sur- 
mounted by a persistent slender style whose tip dilates into a head 
of variable form, stigmatiferous along a vertical line or oblique 
surface.? On the posterior wall of the ovary-cell is found a longi- 
tudinal placenta,’ whose two linear lips bear each a vertical row of 
ovules. These are ascending anatropous,* with their micropyles 
downwards and outwards—. e. towards the anterior aspect of the 
flower. Their chalazal ends are already dilated, flattened, and imbri- 
cated with the corresponding parts of the neighbouring ovules. At 
the base of the ovary next to the placenta is a hypogynous disk, 
forming a fleshy glandular crescent (figs. 211, 212). The fruit 
(fig. 213) is a many-seeded follicle, opening longitudinally when ripe 
to free a number of imbricated ascending seeds, each of which 
contains in the lower parts of its thin coats a fleshy exalbuminous 
embryo, with its inferior radicle partly concealed by the descending 
auricles of the two cotyledons. ‘The seed is dilated above into a 
long membranous wing* (figs. 214, 215). Hmbothrium consists of 
unarmed trees and shrubs from the south of South America; five 
species are known ;° they have simple alternate petiolate exstipulate 
leaves, articulated at the base. The flowers, which form terminal 
racemes, are in pairs on pedicels axillary to the alternate bracts of the 
principal axis of the inflorescence. 
1 This rim surrounding the base of the peri- 
anth is only a dilatation of the apex of the pe- 
duncele, which we shall find occurs in most members 
of this order. 
2 This is the sole real difference between Em- 
bothrium proper and Oreocallis, which has been 
made a distinct genus, and possesses an elliptical 
or shield-like stigmatic surface, more or less flat- 
tened, or convex and oblique. But these ditfe- 
rences can on no account be taken as generic cha- 
racters, occurring as they do in various species of 
other extremely natural genera. 
3 Corresponding as in Leguminose, to the in- 
terval between the two posterior leaves of the 
perianth. 
4 They have two coats. 
VOL. II. 
5 The thin translucent wing is traversed by 
fibrovascular bundles, which join those of the 
raphe, as well as of the chalaza, and vary 
in their course through the wing with the species. 
They form very capricious curves in the wing, 
according to the degree of deviation from their 
primitive direction they undergo during the de- 
velopment of the membranous chalazal appendage. 
6 L. F, Suppl., 128.---Forst., in Comm. 
Soc. Reg. Gott., ix. 24.—Cav., Icon,, i. 63, t. 
65.—R. & Payv., Fl. Per. i, 62, t. 95, 96.— 
LaMx., Dict., ii. 354.—Gay (C.), Fl. Chil, v. 
305.—Hook. F., Fl. Antarct., ii. 341.—Ku., in 
Linnea, x. 474 (Oreocallis).—Bot. Mag., t. 
4856.—Watp., Ann., i. 592 (Oreocallis). 
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