SAXIFRAGACE^:. 



685 



their vestiges, inferior, only its pointed apex free from the calyx ; the 

 pericarp five-celled, although imperfectly so, as the retroflexed pla- 

 centas are scarcely if at all united in the axis at any stage : dissepi- 

 ments thin : cells alternate with the lobes of the calyx. Placentae 

 large, fleshy, two-parted, strongly reflexed into the cells, which they 

 almost fill (the seeds thus brought into contact with the pericarp), 

 their tissue replete with acicular rhaphides. The pericarp is lined 

 with a favose layer of tissue composed of elongated-linear and some- 

 what separable cells, giving it a striated appearance :* this also con- 

 tains an abundance of rhaphides. Seeds very numerous, horizontal, 

 a quarter of a line long, brownish, oblong, anatropous; the testa 

 membranaceous, coarsely striate-reticulated (the areolae linear and 

 longitudinal), thin, conformed to the nucleus ; the rhaphe inconspi- 

 cuous. Embryo cylindrical, next the hilum, half the length of the 

 seed, in the axis of fleshy albumen : cotyledons very small. 



Plate 87. — Broitssaisia arguta : a branch of the male plant, in 

 flower, and of the female plant, in fruit. Fig. 1. A male flower-bud. 

 2. Transverse section of the same. 3. An expanded male flower. 

 4. Vertical section of the same. 5. A fructified female flower. 6. 

 Vertical section of the same. 7. A fruit, with the parts of the flower 

 persistent. 8. Transverse section of the same. 9. Portion of the 

 pericarp, placentas, &c, more magnified. 10. A seed, detached. 11. 

 Vertical section of the same. 12. Embryo. — The details variously 

 magnified. 



2. Broitssaisia pellucid a, Gaud. 



B. foliis ternato-verticUlatis oblongo-lanceolatis oblongisve elongatis ; den- 

 tibus calycis fructiferi brevissimis semis ujperis ; stylo brevissimo conioo 

 seu nullo. 



Broussaisia pellucida, G-aud. Bot. Voy. Bonite, t. 9 (excl. fig. 11, 12), sine descr. 



Hab. Hawaii, Sandwich Islands, in the district of Puna; probably 

 in woods. 



* This structure is the same as Hydrangea, Schizophragma, Decumaria, Philadel- 

 phus, &c. Vid. Torrey & Gray, Flora of North America, 1, p. 593. 



172 



