312 ON THE ORDEAL BEAN OF CALABAR. 
a half inch long; ovary stipitate, rough on the surface, not hairy; style curved, 
smooth except below the stigma, where the concavity is covered with a continu- 
ous line of hairs, which give a marked barbate appearance ; stigma blunt, covered 
by a remarkable ventricular sac or hood, which extends along the upper part of 
the convexity of the style.* Ovules two or three attached to the ventral suture 
by a broad process, crescentic in form, with a convex placental edge, and a long 
hilum. Legume in the young state green, and somewhat falciform, afterwards 
becoming dark-brown and straight; sutures slightly prominent, ventral one 
grooved, interior lined with white loose pith-like cellular tissue, in which the 
ovules are embedded, and by which they are separated from each other. Full 
grown legume about seven inches in length, elliptico-oblong, with an apicilar 
curved point, stipitate (stalk about an inch in length), dehiscent, outer integument 
(epicarp) separating from the inner, dark-brown, rugose, marked with anastomosing 
fibres, which run partly in a transverse direction, and partly along the edge of 
the pods. Inner covering (endocarp) of legume pale-coloured and roughish exter- 
nally; ventral suture furrowed. Seeds, two or three, about an inch long, three 
quarters of an inch broad, each weighing from 40 to 50 grains, separated from 
each other by a woolly cellular substance; hilum dark, sulcate, with brown eleva- 
tions on either side, extending along the whole convex placental edge of the seed ; 
other edge nearly straight; cotyledons pale, hypogeal. 
* Mr Tuomson, in a letter to Mr Murray, describes this process in the recent flower as 
“resembling an admiral’s hat set in a jaunty manner.” 

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. 
Prate XVI. 
Physostigma venenosum, Calabar Ordeal Bean. 
Fig. 1. Branch with pinnately-trifoliolate leaves, and nodoso-racemose infloresence, showing also 
entire flowers with persistent calyx and young legume. Fig, 2. Vexillum separated. 
Fig. 3. Ale. Fig. 4. Carina. Fig. 5. Diadelphous stamens. Fig. 6. Upper part of 
style, bearded, and with cucullate stigma. Fig. 7. Upper part of bearded style, with 
stigmatic hood laid open. Fig. 8. Calyx and young legume. Figs. 6, 7, 8, magnified. 
Prate XVII. 
Fig. 1. Young legume of Physostigma venenosum, with three ovules. Fig. 2. Full grown legumes of 
ditto. Fig. 3. Seed of Ordeal Bean seen laterally. Fig. 4. The same, showing the suleate 
and extended hilum on the convex edge. All the figures natural size. 
