A. Magnolieæ. The flowers are borne singly, and before opening are enveloped in an ochrea-like spathe which corresponds to the stipules of the foliage-leaves. The perianth generally consists of 3 trimerous whorls, the external one of which is sometimes sepaloid (Liriodendron, and the majority of Magnoliaspecies), sometimes coloured like the others; the perianth is sometimes many-seriate. Numerous spirally-placed stamens and carpels. The latter are situated on the elongated, cylindrical receptacle, and are individually more or less united, except in Liriodendron, where they are free. This last genus has winged achenes; the fruitlets in Magnolia open along the dorsal and ventral sutures, and the seeds then hang out, suspended by elastic threads formed from the vascular bundles of the funicle and raphe; they are red and drupaceous, the external layer of the shell being fleshy—a very rare occurrence.
B. Illicieæ has no stipules. The carpels are situated in a whorl on a short receptacle. Follicles, one-seeded. The leaves are dotted by glands containing essential oil. Illicium; Drimys.
70 species; in tropical or temperate climates; none in Europe or Africa. They are chiefly used as ornamental plants, e.g. the Tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera, N. Am.), Magnolia grandiflora (N. Am.), M. yulan and fuscata (China), and others. The remains of Liriodendron occur as fossils in the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods.—The fruits of Illicium anisatum (Star-aniseed from Eastern Asia) are OFFICINAL. The bark of Drimys winteri (S. Am.) is also strongly aromatic.
Order 6. Calycanthaceæ. These are very closely related to the Magnoliaceæ, but differ in having perigynous flowers with many perianth-leaves, stamens and (about 20) carpels in a continuous spiral, seeds almost devoid of endosperm with rolled up, leaf-like cotyledons, and leaves opposite on a square stem.—There are some species in N. America (Calycanthus florida, occidentalis, etc.) and 1 in Japan (Chimonanthus præcox), all strongly aromatic.
Order 7. Monimiaceæ. Aromatic shrubs with opposite leaves. Perigynous flowers. The anthers dehisce by valves like those of the Lauraceæ, and the Monimiaceæ may thus be considered as an apocarpous form of this order. They are also closely related to Calycanthaceæ. 150 species, tropical.—Hedycarya, Mollinedia, Monimia.
Fig. 384.—Diagram of Berberis.
Fig. 385.—Berberis: carpel with 2 stamens.
Order 8. Berberidaceæ (Barberries).—The regular, ☿, hypogynous flowers are dimerous or trimerous and have regularly alternating whorls of free sepals, petals, and stamens and 1 unilocular carpel; the corolla and stamens have each 2 whorls, the calyx at least 2. The anthers open, as in Lauraceæ, by (2) valves, but are always introrse (Fig. [384]). The pistil has a large, disc-like, almost sessile stigma (Fig. [385]), and in the ovary several erect ovules are placed close to the base of the ventral suture. The fruit is most frequently a berry. Seeds endospermous.—Shrubs or herbs with scattered, most frequently compound leaves (without stipules), and racemose inflorescences.—They show a relationship to the Lauraceæ in the number of the parts of the flower and the dehiscence of the anthers.