CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
123 
staniinodes ; for they altei*nate with the filaments, and seem to 
stand in the same whorl ; they are somewhat deltoid in form in 
the S ' . tapering downward to the point of their attachment round 
the base of the small central sterile ovary, are almost unequally 
2-lipped and slightly concave at the summit, each lip being 
emarginated ; from their form, they appear somewhat radiately 
expanded, and, as well as the stamens, are quite glabrous, leaving 
in the centre the depressed disk-shaped ovary, which is covered 
with lepidote scales, similar to those which invest the bract and 
leaves. These staminodes, in the ? flower, are more eompressed, 
simply 2-lobed in the summit, and, like the stamens, stand erect, 
pressed against the ovary; they cannot be considered as the 
lobes of a disk, beeause they are perfectly free and hypogynously 
attached, alternating with the stamens round the base of the 
ovary. 
The filaments in the d flowers are semiterete, thick, and fleshy, 
divaricating outwards at the point of their hypogynous attach- 
ment, but gradually curve inwards, so that the anthers meet in 
a connate form in the eentre : the anthers are nearly globular, 
and, consisting of two adnate lobes, are cordate at the base, where 
they are somewhat dorsally affixed to the pointed apex of the 
filament ; the lobes burst somewhat laterally, each by a longitu- 
dinal fissure, the margins of which contract, so that each appears 
to open by a large broad pore ; they are nearly the length of the 
filament, the entire stamens being twice as long as the inter- 
mediate staminodes, the same length as the sepals, and two- 
thirds the length of the petals. Sir Wm. Hooker's figures of 
the parts of the male flower are very correctly depicted. 
In the female flower, the bract, sepals, and petals are similar 
to the same parts in the male ; but the petals in the bud are 
pressed imbricatively upon the ovary, which fills all the space in 
the centre. The five filaments are linear, half the length of the 
ovary, against which they stand erect, are much compressed and 
rendered somewhat emarginate at the summit by the presence 
internally of two small yellow glands, which are the abortive 
anthers : the five alternate staminodes are rather more than half 
their length, nearly double their breadth, emarginate at the 
summit, equally compressed and erect, and stand in the same 
whorl hypogynously attached round the base of the ovary : they 
are all quite smooth ; but the ovary is densely covered with im- 
bricated peltate lepidote scales, entirely concealing the style, which 
is suddenly bent down and adpressed upon it ; when the flower 
bursts, the style raises itself out of its imprisonment and remains 
still considerably reflexed ; it is smooth, terete, and about one- 
third the length of the ovary, being terminated by a somewhat 
compressed 2-furcate stigma, the forks of which are rather 
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