GYNANDRIA, (from , a "woman;" and , a "man.") The name of the 20th class in Linnæus's sexual system, consisting of plants with hermaphrodite flowers, in which the stamina are placed upon the style, or, to speak more properly, upon a pillar-shaped receptacle, resembling a style, which rises in the middle of the flower, and bears both the stamina and pointal; that is, both the supposed organs of generation. See BOTANY, p. 1292.
The flowers of this class, says Linnæus, have a monstrous appearance, arising, as he imagines, from the singular and unusual situation of the parts of fructification.