54 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
the carpellary constitution of the ovary and fruit in the CatalpecB. 
In some species of Spathodea, in Stereospermum, in Parmentiera, 
and pai’tially in Sparattosperma, the dissepiment seen in fig. 6 
becomes swollen and enlarged by solid deposits into a cylindrical 
plug, which nearly fills the entire cavity of the Fig. 11. 
two valves, the body of the seeds being left im- 
bedded in corresponding cavities of the plug 
(as in fig. 11), while the wings remain pressed 
against the inner face of the valves. In Spa- 
thodea falcata and in Spathodea altemifoUa, the 
capsule is much compressed, and the dissepiment, instead of 
being cylindrical, is greatly flattened, though still filling the 
entire space formed by the two valves : this dissepiment is deeply 
sulcated along the middle of both faces, almost to the centre, 
the groove being divided by an extremely narrow ridge, the 
margins of which are attached to the middle of the valves, from 
which they afterwards separate : this ridge is an extreme abbre- 
viation of the shorter seminigerous arms of the cruciform dis- 
sepiment described in Heterophragma (fig. 10), and is in like 
manner seminigerous ; it contains the same placentary threads 
which are seen in the centre of the large cylindrical plug of 
Stereospermum chelonoides. In a section of Fig. 12. 
the dissepiment of Spathodea falcata (fig. 12) 
there are seen two of the deep cavities alter- 
nately formed in it upon each side of the 
ridge, each of which cavities is filled with a single seed attached 
by its marginal hilum to the ridge. From this ai’rangement it 
is seen that the seeds are strictly centripetal, the radicle of the 
embryo pointing to the axis of the fruit, contrary to the usual 
disposition of the order. These several developments therefore 
may all be referred to one simple normal structure, different 
from that of the Bignoniece •, and the Catalpece thus constitute a 
second very natural tribe. 
From the last-mentioned group, as indicated by DeCandolle, 
we must exclude Platycarpum (and, of course, Henriquezia), as 
it is evident that their ovary is constructed of two carpels only, 
which, though placentiferous on the midrib of their folded car- 
pellary leaves, as in the two preceding divisions, are differently 
placed in regard to each other; for the midribs of the carpels 
are disposed back to back, as in fig. 7, and con- pjg 13 
joined so as to form a bilocular ovary, as in 
fig. 13, with the placentation in the axis and the 
ovules fixed in the angle of each cell ; the fruit 
thus resulting is a 2 -eelled loculicidal capsule, the valves remain- 
ing attached to the axis, and the cells opening along the sutural 
line of the sterile margins of the carpels. In this gTOup the 
