Page:Flora Australiensis Volume 5.djvu/553

 entirely free from the walls of the pericarp, except at the point of attachment of the seed, forming a portion of the latter, not of the former, and has therefore no title to the name of a dissepiment, real or spurious, still given to it in systematic works, even in the Prodromus.

 28. BANKSIA, Linn. f.

Flowers hermaphrodite. Perianth regular or nearly so, straight or curved, the slender tube opening equally or along the lower side only, the limb ovoid oblong or linear, the lamini remaining long coherent, or rarely separating as the tube opens. Anthers narrow, sessile in the concave laminæ, the connective thick, usually very shortly produced beyond the cells. Hypogynous scales 4, very thin and membranous (rarely deficient?). Ovary very small and sessile; style usually longer than the perianth, rigid, curved and protruding from the slit in the perianth-tube until the end is set free by the separation of the laminæ, and then either straightened or remaining hooked or curved, rarely straight from the first and not exceeding the perianth; the stigmatic end on a level with the anthers, of a different texture but smooth, or striate and furrowed, continuous with the style or with a prominent rim at the base, the real stigma small and terminal; ovules 2, collaterally attached about the middle. Fruit a compressed capsule, opening at the broad end (or rather outer margin, for the scar of the style is lateral) in two hard often woody horizontal valves. Seeds usually 2, compressed, with a terminal membranous wing broad and rounded like the valves, the seeds separated by a plate of the same shape (the consolidated outer integuments of the inner side of the two seeds) free from the ripe seeds, simple (completely consolidated) between the nuclei, double (remaining distinct) between the wings.—Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate or rarely verticillate or nearly so, usually narrow, entire toothed pinnatifid or pinnate, with numerous (rarely few) short teeth lobes or segments, the primary veins numerous and transverse, rarely inconspicuous or irregular and the minute reticulations numerous on the under surface, with a minute tomentum rarely wanting in the areolæ and sometimes white and covering the whole under surface, the upper surface almost always glabrous and smooth. Flowers sessile in pairs, in dense terminal cylindrical oblong or globular spikes, either terminal and sessile above the last leaves or rarely lateral or on short lateral branches ; each pair of flowers subtended by one bract and two lateral rather smaller bracteoles, both bracts and bracteoles densely woolly-villous on the sides, the tips glabrous tomentose or villous, either clavate and obtuse or truncate, or shortly acuminate, always densely imbricate in parallel spiral or rarely vertical lines. Perianth-tube very slender and entire within the bracts, ultimately splitting beyond them. In fruit the bracts and bracteoles become consolidated with the rhachis into a thick woody cone, either covered with the withered remains of the perianths amongst which the capsules are entirely concealed, or, where the flowers are wholly deciduous, the valves of the capsules protrude more or less beyond the bracts, the