281 
Order CCX. PEDALIACE^. The Oil-Seed Tribe. 
PEDALiNiE, R. Brown Prodr. 519. (1810) ; Bindley in Botan. Register, 9. 934. (1825). — 
Sesames, Kunth Synops. 2. 251. (1823) ; Bartl. Ord. Nat. 175. (1830) ; End- 
licher in Linncea, VII. 1. (1832). — Martyniace^, Link. Handb. 1.504. (1829) a 
sect, of Personatae. 
Essential Character. — Calyx divided into 5 nearly equal pieces. Corolla monope- 
talous, hypogynous, irregular ; the throat ventricose, the limb bilabiate, the lobes some- 
what valvate in aestivation. Bisk hypogynous, fleshy, sometimes glandular. Stamens 
didynamous, included within the tube, together with a rudiment of a fifth. Anthers 2- 
celled ; the connective articulated with the filament, a little prolonged beyond the cells, 
terminated by a gland. Ovary seated in a glandular disk, unilocular or bilocular, some- 
times with several 1- or 2-seeded spurious cells, formed by the splitting of two placentas 
and the divergence of their lobes ; ovules either erect, or pendulous, or horizontal, solitary, 
or two, or several ; style 1 ; stigma divided. Fruit drupaceous or capsular, valvular, or 
indehiscent, with from 2 to 8 cells, which are usually oligospermous when numerous, and 
polyspermous only when two. Seeds with a papery testa wingless ; albumen none ; embryo 
straight. — Herbaceous plants. Leaves opposite, or nearly so. Flowers axillary, each with 
two bracts. 
Affinities. These differ from Bignoniacese in their wingless seeds, 
which are in most cases definite, and sometimes in their woody parietal lobed 
placentae, which spread and divide variously in the inside of the pericarp, so 
as to produce an apparently 4- or 6-celled fruit out of a 1 -celled ovary. For 
an explanation of the manner in which this takes place, see the Botan. Register, 
fol. 934. From Bignoniaceae they are known by their large seeds, free from all 
appendage at either end, often by their woody placentae, and short fruit. Sesa- 
mum may be considered a transition from the one to the other. Endlicher 
rightly observes that Brown in forming his Pedalinae {Prodr. 519.), does not 
combine with them Sesamum ; neither, however does he explain how they are 
to be distinguished ; but as usual the extreme and studied conciseness of this 
learned man leaves his readers almost as much in the dark as if the name of Sesa- 
mum had not been mentioned. In the mean while until some character is given 
by which Sesamum and its nearest allies are to be separated from Pedaliacese, I 
leave the genus in the same place as it occupied in the first edition of this 
work. A long and ingenious dissertation will be found in the Linnsea, vol. VII. 
p. 8. &c., by Endlicher, who considers that there are occasionally 4 carpels to 
the fruit of some Pedaliacese, such as Rogeria and Josephinia grandiflora. 
Geography. Found only within the tropics of Africa, Asia, and Ame- 
rica. 
Properties. The leaves of Sesamum are emollient. Its seeds contain 
an abundance of a fixed oil, as tasteless as that of Olive oil, for which it 
might be substituted, and which is expressed in Egypt in great quantities. 
The fresh leaf of Pedalium murex, when agitated in water, renders it mucila- 
ginous, in which state it is prescribed by Indian doctors in cases of dysuria 
and gonorrhoea. 
GENERA. 
Martynia, L. 
Craniolaria, L. 
Dicerocaryum, Bojer. 
Rogeria, Gay. 
Pretrea, Gay. 
Josephinia, Vent. 
Pedalium, L. 
Uncaria,Burchell (40) 
Carpoceras, A. Rich. 
Sesamum, L. 
Ceratotheca, Endl. 
