. The natural history of plants. Botany. ItHAMNAmM. 59 II. GOUANIA SEEIES. Gomnia' (fig. 54) consists of Rhamnacm with an inferior ovary not free. The floral receptacle has the form of a sac in the concavity of which the adherent gynsecium is lodged, whilst the perianth and androeoium are inserted near its opening above an epigynous disk with five alternipetalous lobes, often very prominent.^ The triangu- lar sepals, five in number, are valvate in the bud. With these alternate five small bowl- like petals sheltering in their concavity the superposed stamens. The latter are epigy- nous, formed
. The natural history of plants. Botany. ItHAMNAmM. 59 II. GOUANIA SEEIES. Gomnia' (fig. 54) consists of Rhamnacm with an inferior ovary not free. The floral receptacle has the form of a sac in the concavity of which the adherent gynsecium is lodged, whilst the perianth and androeoium are inserted near its opening above an epigynous disk with five alternipetalous lobes, often very prominent.^ The triangu- lar sepals, five in number, are valvate in the bud. With these alternate five small bowl- like petals sheltering in their concavity the superposed stamens. The latter are epigy- nous, formed of a free filament, inflexed in the bud, and a bilocular anther, with lateral or extrorse dehiscence, sometimes furnished with a salient glandular interior. The ovary has three cells, each containing one ovule of Bhamnus, and is surmounted by a style more or less deeply divided into three stigmatife- rous branches. The fruit is completely inferior and crowned with the remains or scars of the perianth; it is a capsule with three cells and furnished with three wide vertical rounded wings. At the time of the separation of the fruit, these divide into three cocci, in such a manner that the latter are bordered with a thin half-wing. They are otherwise indehiscent and leave on the receptacle a slender columella which divides into six filaments. Each encloses an obovate seed compressed inwards, plano-convex, with a smooth, testaceous external envelope containing a scanty fleshy albumen and an axUe embryo, with a short inferior radicle and broad rounded cotyledons, slightly flattened. The Gouania to the mimber of some thirty species,^ inhabit the hottest regions of both worlds. Thay are generally climbing shrubs which attach themselves to neighbouring objects by tendrils representing sterile. ^ JAca. Amei: 261.—L. Qen. n. 1157.—J. —Bakek Fl. Maurit. 52.—Zetinaria G-srtn. Gen. 381.— r. Fruet. iii. 19.—Lamk. Fruet. ii. 187, t. 120, fig. 4.—Nagelia Zoll. et Diet. iii
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1871
