88 
THALAMlI'LORiE. 
ORDER XXV. BOMBACEyE. 
Calycine sepals 5, cohering in a campanulate or 
cylindrical tube, either truncated or with 5 divisions, 
naked or involucelled with a few minute bracteoles 
at the base. Petals 5, regular ; or, when the inside 
of the calyx is coloured, none. Stamens 5, 10, 15, or 
more : filaments cohering at the base into a tube, 
which is soldered to the tube formed by the base of 
the petals, divided at the apex into 5 parcels, each of 
which is 1- or poly-antherous : anthers 1 -celled, lin- 
ear, reniform or anfractuose. Ovary of 5, rarely 10, 
carpels : styles of the same number as the carpels. 
Fruit variable : seeds generally wrapped in wool, or 
pulp ; exalbuminose with the cotyledons corrugated 
or convoluted, or albuminose with the cotyledons 
plain. 
Trees or shrubs, natives of the Tropics. Leaves alternate, 
petiolate, bi-stipulated : pubescence stellated. 
The Cotton-tree tribe are peculiar to the hottest parts of the 
globe. Like the Mallow tribe, from which they can with dif- 
ficulty be separated, they abound in a mucilaginous juice, and 
have no known deleterious property. , 
I. BIelicteres. 
Calyx tubulose, subquinquefid. Petals 5, ligulato- 
unguiculated subdentate towards the apex. Stamens 
5, 10, or 15, monadelplious for some distance, with a 
multifid urceole at the apex, with some of them ste- 
rile. Ovary on a long stipe : styles 5, concrete at 
the base. Carpels 5, one-celled, cc-seeded, internally 
dehiscent, frequently twisted into a regular spire, 
sometimes straight. Seeds exalbuminose, cotyledons 
spirally convoluted De Ccmd. 
Name , from s>a^, a screw, hence eh/xrtjg, any thing wound round 
or coiled; applied to this genus, from the manner in which 
the fruit is twisted. 
