OF CEYLON AND INDIA. 
321 
position. Its structure is simple, and has been sufficiently 
described by previous authors. It has a sepaloid perianth, 
which is divided part of its height into three segments. 
This at anthesis stands up closely round the essential organs 
and holds the three slightly exserted stamens with their 
introrse anthers very close to the stigmas, so that autogamy 
is the rule (PI. XIII., fig. 3). The flower is very small and 
inconspicuous, and the loose powdery pollen is easily blown 
about by wind, and as the stigmas are receptive a little time 
before the dehiscence of the anthers, and the flowers are 
very close together on the rocks, there is a slight chance of 
an occasional cross, but in general the fertilization is from the 
pollen of the same flower. Every flower, as a rule, sets a full 
complement of seed. The ovary is trilocular (PI. XIII., 10), 
with a thick central placenta and very many minute ovules, 
and crowned by three short papillose stigmas. The ovule 
shows a simple structure like that described by Warming 
for Tristicha hypnoides. 
The ripening of the seed is very rapid, and in about a 
week or ten days after the opening of the flower the 
capsules have generally shed their seeds. The ovary wall 
in the flower is smooth, and the ovary triangular, with 
three bundles visible in the wall of each carpel. After 
fertilization these thicken and lignify into stout ribs, as 
Warming has described. No dehiscence ribs form at the 
junction of the carpelsin this form, as is the case in the 
Dicræas, &c., to be described below. The capsule (PI. 
XIII., fig. 7) has nine well-marked ribs, with the thin wall 
depressed between them. At the same time the tissue 
round the vascular bundle in the centre of the pedicel (PI. 
XIII., fig. 4) becomes strongly lignified as in Tristicha, 
while the pellucid outer cortex falls away, leaving the fruit 
on a rather longer pedicel than the flower, but on a slender 
and very elastic one, as compared with the stout non-elastic 
stalk of the flower. The lignification of the outer part of 
the vascular bundle usually proceeds some little distance 
back into the tissue of the thallus itself. 
