Dr Dickson 07i Diplostemonous Flowers, dec. 257 



has described in Astrapcea, we may expect to find the carpels, 

 when of the same number, superposed to the sepals, as in 

 that plant. Payer, indeed, has stated that the Hermannese, 

 Dombeyese, and Bombace^, in which the carpels are super- 

 posed to the sepals, are distinguished thereby from the Mal- 

 vacese, Sterculese, and Lasiopetaleee : * but, as regards the 

 Malvaceae, I believe it can only have been through an over- 

 sight that he has associated them with the Lasiopetalese, 

 since he describes the carpels in Hibiscus as being 

 superposed to the sepals. f So far as my observations ex- 

 tend, the rule seems without exception, that in 5-carpellary 

 Malvaceae the carpels are superposed to the sepals, just as 

 in the Dombeyege. I have ascertained the occurrence of 

 this arrangement in the following: — (Hibisceas) Hibiscus, 

 Paritium ; (Sideae) Lagunea. Moreover, in the Malopeae, 

 where Payer has shown the gynoecium to consist of five 

 carpellary groups, I find that, in 3IaIope, these groups are 

 superposed to the sepals ; so that in this plant we have 

 a similar arrangement to that in Hibiscus — only, the five 

 simple carpels of Hibiscus are replaced in Malope by five 

 carpellary groups (or compound carpels, as they may be 

 termed, being developments evidently of an analogous 

 character with the compound stamens of polyadelphous 

 plants). Payer has described the angles of the pentagon 

 formed by the carpellary groups in Malope as superposed to 

 the sepals : but I am quite satisfied that his statement is 

 erroneous. In flowers at or near maturity, there is, some- 

 times, a slight want of perfect superposition of the carpel- 

 lary groups to the sepals : but this seems to be never to such 

 an extent as to justify Payers statement. In the early 

 condition of the ovarian pentagon, the superposition of its 

 angles to the petals is quite unmistakeable. The cavity of 

 the staminal tube is five-sided, the sides alternating with 

 the petals ; and the carpellary pentagon, in its origin, is 

 pretty accurately fitted into the bottom of this cavity. % 

 The superposition in many Ureneae of the loculi to the 



* Organogenie, pp. 44-5. t Ibid,, p. 33. 



\ I have not had an opportunity of examining the position of the carpellary 

 groups in Kitaibelia ; and there seems to be considerable confusion in Payer's 

 works, on this point, as these groups are described in the "Organogenie" 

 (p. 34) as alternate with, and in the " Elements de Botanique" (p. 209) as 

 superposed to, the petals. 



